I'm Glad You Came
by beaner.weener
Summary: Enter Percy Jackson, your normal teen boy, living in Manhattan. Enter Annabeth Chase, a ballet student from L.A. who is staying at Percy's house. Percy comes to two problems: a. they can't seem to get along, and b. Annabeth Chase is anorexic. T for eating disorder.
1. And The Torture Sessions Begin

Sooo. Today was the day. The new girl was moving here today.

Here's the deal.

My name is Percy Jackson. Up until now, I've led a pretty comfortable life. I mean, with a pretty awesome family, things get to be comfy. My mother, Sally, and my Step-father, Paul, in our normal-sized New York estate, with my jerk ex-step-father Gabe living, secluded, in our basement. I swear, the man didn't need anything to survive. Other than gambling money, of course. Good thing he's good at gambling. Every once in a while, he would have his disgusting friends over for garlic pizza. Thanks to this, every time any one of us went down to collect rent, the entire house smelled like garlic pizza and old sweat socks for at least five hours.

Back to the new girl. The only things I knew about her were that her name was Annabeth Chase and she was coming from California. She'd be going to my school, which is why we were letting her stay with us. Apparently, her dad was an old business friend of Paul's.

Not that I cared. No, honest, I didn't. So when the doorbell rang on Saturday, August 11th, guess who was the only one in the house _not_ ambling to get it? I suppose, looking back on it, it was a bit rude of me to saunter into the living room, five minutes after the new girl showed up, under the pretense of getting a soda. It didn't matter to me then, though. But man, when I got a look of _that_ girl…

They don't make them like her up here in Manhattan. This girl had California imprinted all over her. But not in a bad way. Her honey-blond locks were pinned into a messy, airplane-worn bun, a few curly strands falling into her gray eyes. Now, you'd see a few blond girls with gray eyes in New York. In fact, you'd see a few of nearly everybody in New York. But her eyes burned, almost silvery in the noontime sun. Who could deny? She was hot.

"Percy," Paul scolded me. "You're late."

"Who knows," I said with an indifferent shrug. "Maybe her plane was early."

My mom scowled, but said nothing. I stole another look at the new girl out of the corner of my eye. Her fiery eyes were burning two holes straight through the cool air, yet she still somehow managed to look indifferent. And, even in her bright, baggy sweatpants and her oversized gray Harvard tee, she managed to look like an angel.

I had no clue from where my thoughts were coming. This was totally unlike me to think thoughts like this about a girl. In fact, I had dated, and broken the heart of, almost every single girl that attended Goode High School. They called me a jerk. Truth be told, I was hoping to find one that I really, really liked. None of them were like that. I looked away, because it was all I could do to keep from drooling. I was pathetic.

"Percy, why don't you show Annabeth up to the spare room?" asked Paul.

"Whatever," I said with another indifferent shrug. My mother's frown deepened, but she still said nothing. This was how I got to meet Annabeth Chase, one of my life's deepest mysteries.

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	2. Of Unpleasant Beginnings

**Pleasepleaseplease read the AN at the bottom! I hate them, too, but it's SUPER IMPORTANT!**

Chapter Two

I swear, Percy makes me sound like some kind of mystery. I'm not. He's just dense.

Okay, let's get on with it. My name is Annabeth Chase. I'm a sixteen-year-old dancer. My dad and Paul Blofis worked together at a college somewhere.

As Percy strolled into the room, my first impression, putting it bluntly, was that I would hate him. Upon closer inspection, he really didn't seem like the type anyone would hate: messy dark hair that looked like it had just woken up and plopped itself on his head for the occasion, blue-green eyes the colour of the sea, and a bored expression on his face that perfectly matched the one I so often wore.

As the conversation progressed, I let myself get lost in my own thoughts. After the tiring plane trip here from the sunny California, I was dead-tired, bored, and wished I could unpack all of my luggage and carry-ons. I was also hungry, but more on that later. I caught Percy looking at me and tried my best to keep myself focused on the point directly above his head, not his startling sea-green eyes. I eventually found myself being led up a small flight of stairs. Nothing too grand.

I snapped my thoughts back into focus. "Where are we going?"

A small smile twitched at Percy's lips. "Upstairs."

I burned a glare at the back of Percy's head, imagining my eye path burning two holes into his skull. Before I got to make the snappy retort I wanted to, Percy opened a door.

The room was large and spacious. Or at least it appeared that way because the walls were white and it had nothing but a white dresser and a bed with silver-y sheets. Home, sweet home.

"So," Percy said, leaning against the doorframe. "Why are you here?"

Gee, thanks for saying that so subtly. I told my warming cheeks to take five, and I didn't answer his question.

"You don't belong here. In New York. Why did you come?"

I mentally counted to ten, let out an exhausted breath, and turned around. Percy's lips were twitching. The little twit was getting a good time out of annoying me. "I came to study ballet," I said, and turned back around sharply. Really, that was only part of the story. I was getting away from my family, mostly.

"So. A ballerina."

"If you're using the term loosely." By now, I had started unpacking pictures that I had brought.: one of my ballet friends and I, each in near-identical arabesque en pointe. The next of me and my ex, Luke. He had broken up with me an hour straight before my leaving, so I had no time to unpack the picture. The next one of my family: my father, my step-mom, my brothers, and I was in there, somewhere. I didn't really look. Percy was following me around, and it was annoying me. He picked up the picture of my friends and me.

"What's this?"

"A picture, stupid."

Another small smile tugged at his lips. "Well, duh. But of what?"

I looked up. "My friends and I practicing. There's Rachael, the redhead; Thalia, the one that looks like a raccoon because of her eyeliner; Piper, the one with her hair all in her face; and then there's me, the one that looks like she's about to collapse."

He glanced at me. "There's one more girl."

I waited a minute before responding. "That's Silena. She was killed in a car crash a year ago."

"Oh."

I unpacked in silence a little bit, very aware of Percy's eyes following me around, like a two little tiny stalkers.

"What's this one?" I turned around. He was holding the picture of Luke and me.

"My ex," I said, snapping the picture out of his hands. I honestly couldn't understand why he refused to leave me alone.

His lips twitched again. _The. Little. Donkey. _"If he's your ex, why did you bring a picture?"

Honestly, at that point, I was ready to shove him in the snow, except there was no snow around (it was August, for God's sake!), so I was stuck dealing with the dog. So, naturally, instead of explaining my entire story to him, I made something up. And the lie was actually much better than the truth.

"I'm bringing it here to burn it."

"Okay then."

I think my little story killed to birds with one stone, or, in his case, two fish with one stone, because, in all due hatred, his face had this odd point, almost an extension of the nose beyond normal dimensions, that reminded me of a fish. He was backing slowly out of my new room (which had become nice and personalized, thank you very much) right as I placed my prized possession, old beat up pointe shoes that once belonged to the world's first Prima Ballerina Assoluta, on the bland dresser. I was glad he was leaving me alone. I mean, honestly, what type of host stalks his guest? Percy's type, I'll bet.

My stomach rumbled, and I ordered it to shut up and told it that it was full. As normal, it believed me.

**Okay, guys. I normally don't like Authors' Notes, and I normally won't repost this fast. But because of the alarming response to my story, I have to thank you guys! (I mean seriously, 141 views in less than 24 hours? You people rock!) You can feel free to PM me about things that you might like me to add (or subtract) from this story. And please help me figure out how to make Percy find out that Annabeth is anorexic! I had this brill idea last night but I never got around to the plot structure. Poor planning on my part. I'll hold polls for some things that I need help on, along with some random things about the works of Rick Riordan. Thank you soooooo much! **

**3, Binna**


	3. Of Wins And Losses

Chapter Three

"Annabeth!" I rapped on the door a few more times, but New Girl wasn't answering. "Annabeth!" I raised my fist to knock again, but the door abruptly swung open, my fist making contact with the bridge of her nose.

"Ow," she grumbled. "What do you want, stalker?"

I want your money, I was tempted to say. "I'm stuck on Welcome Committee, so I had to call you down to dinner," I said in disdain. Well, I tried to say it in disdain. Didn't exactly work out for me. You see, Annabeth had changed out of her airplane clothes and into gray Abercrombie sweatpants and a cozy-looking pink sweater. I was (as embarrassing as it is to admit) trying not to stare. In whatever case, my disdainful comment ended up being a slight bit slobbery, which is twice as embarrassing to admit.

"Fine," Annabeth snapped, and followed me down the stairs.

For whatever reason, my mom had gotten her china out, and prepared one of the only things she could cook: frozen lasagna. I don't know where she got it from, but that stuff was _good_.

And, of course, the table had been extended and the fourth seat brought out.

Not my idea of a good time.

My mom and Paul were already seated, watching us come in like we were royalty. I sat down, and then Annabeth sat down beside me. My mom frowned. What was I supposed to do, hold the chair open for her? I mentally rolled my eyes.

Everyone instantly dug in. Being one of the only things my mom can cook besides frozen pizza, the lasagna was a welcomed sight. It was also _really really _good. I swear, my mom had to have bribed some professional chef somewhere to make it for her, it was that good.

Wait.

I take my first comment back.

Everyone instantly dug in, except for Annabeth, who just sort of pushed her plate to the side and smiled awkwardly. My mom seemed to have noticed at the same time I did.

"What's the matter, Annabeth? Do you not like lasagna?"

"Oh, no," said quickly with a small, nervous laugh. "It's not that. I just ate on the plane, and I'm starting to feel a little homesick. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow."

"Well, I hope you do, because we have this grand welcome-to-town party planned for you-"

Paul and I nearly choked on our lasagna, and Annabeth stared at my mom like she had just sentenced her to execution by hydrochloric acid.

"That was a joke," she said quickly. "But I do hope you'll let us show you around town."

Annabeth nodded politely. "Sure. By the way, I have a fitting scheduled in a few days for my new pointes in the Academy."

"Well, that's perfect! Percy can show you around town, and I'm sure he'd love to see you dance." Something in the way she said this made me blush madly, like I was going to be watching Annabeth work a pole or something.

Annabeth's smile froze.

_Well, I don't like you, either._ But aloud I said, just to torture her, "Oh, I'd love to." I shot a too-wide grin at Annabeth, completely ignoring her searing glare. My mom looked between the two of us with her eyes narrowed. Paul coughed.

"Who wants dessert?"

{Insert super awkward cricket sounds here}

"No? Oh, okay."

The table sort of fell apart then. My mom went to the kitchen to wash dishes, my dad went down to the basement to watch television, and I followed Annabeth up the stairs.

"So," I said casually. "When _am_ I going to sample your dancing?"

"Never."

"Why not?" At this point, I was leaning against the doorframe of Annabeth's room.

Annabeth turned and faced me. "I _can_ drive myself around, you know. I have my license. So you don't need to drive me anywhere. I don't know why you offered."

"Neither do I," I lied. _To torture you._

"Problem solved. Win-win." Then she slammed the door in my face.

_We should have bought a house with tastier doors._

**Visit my profile and vote in my polls, please! Love you guys! Oh, followers: sorry about the faux update earlier today. Posted the wrong chapter. Don't forget to leave a review! Thanks XD**


	4. Robbing Some Baseball

**Sorry for not updating sooner. I think I'll get to update once a week. But my life is dominated by either tennis or sickness, so… yeah. Sorry. **

I sipped my coffee. It was roughly five in the morning, and I was stretching out my Achilles. I put down my cup and lie flat on my back, wincing. The skin around my ribs and hips had taken a pretty bad blow last night, adjusting to a new bed, and I was still decently sore. I pointed my feet, making my toes touch the ground. The polished wooden floor reminded me of the studio in San Francisco. I sat up and grabbed my black pointes, my performance shoes, which I had only taken out of hiding because the vamp had split in my old pink pair (I swear I blame my brothers). I laced the black ribbon around my ankles and stood, my feet in classic first position.

I did a few echappes, my feet not protesting for once. Sure, my black pointes were almost dead. You know pointe shoes are dead when they start to feel comfortable. But it was better than my other two options: my vamp-broken pinks or ancient lavenders that are rotting and decaying.

I rose into first arabesque, feeling the perfect line of energy flow from my pointed feet, up my spine, into my arms, and buzz in my brain. It made me shiver.

"Well, what are you doing up so early?" asked a groggy male voice from the foot of the stairs. I instantly fell out of arabesque, the bouncing energy flowing through me shattering.

Percy was at the edge of the steps. His eyes were still tired and his hair was all messed up, but I was fairly sure it was Percy. Paul didn't have such green eyes. And…was that a baseball bat he was holding?

"I could be asking you the same question myself." After all, it was about five-fifteen. Percy just smiled in that way people do when they're tired.

"I thought you were a burglar." Well, that explains the baseball bat. He sat down on the last step. "So, are you going to show me some awesome ballet moves or something?"

"No," I shot back. "Why?"

He paused for a minute. "Because whatever you were doing a few seconds ago was pretty beautiful."

My mouth opened and shut, but no sound came out. Finally, I stammered out, "I…I…Was that a compliment?"

"Yeah," he confessed in that lazy, too-cool-for-you way of his, "it was. Now could you apologize for slamming the door in my face last night?"

"No, why would I?" I grinned and did a few casual fouette turns. "You're the one that punched me last night."

"So what was that, payback?"

"Sure."

"Way to be all forgiving about it."

"You never apologized."

"Well, neither did you. Hey, is that coffee?" He pointed at my (probably no longer) piping-hot mug.

"Yes. Yes it is. And it's mine."

"This is my house."

"It's my coffee."

"I hate you."

"How heartwarming."

"What's going on down here?" A strange voice interrupted out comeback war/stare down. I looked up. Percy's mom was standing in the middle of the stairs, looking half-dead.

"Hi, Mrs. Jackson."

"Good morning, Annabeth. Percy, I have to get your dad ready for work."

Percy groaned. "He's working again?"

"Yes I am. Just a bunch of papers to grade and a few hundred names to memorize."

"Hi, Paul."

"Good morning, Annabeth. Were you dancing?"

"Yes, I was." I felt myself blush, and instantly hated myself for it.

"Well, then dance for us, Annabeth," Paul encouraged. "Wait a minute, Percy. Why do you have a baseball bat?"

Percy studied me carefully. "I thought she was a robber."

Paul shook his head. "I mean, where did you get the baseball bat?"

Percy's eyes widened slightly, and he chucked the bat out of an open window. "What baseball bat?"

Paul eyed him warily.

"Annabeth, dance for us!" Percy said quickly, and then disappeared into the kitchen.

"That's right," Paul said. "Do one of those pirouetty things or something."

I arched an eyebrow at him (pirouetty things?!) and went into a modified pirouette from Fifth, my pointe shoes arching excessively in their deadness.

"I think my foot was sickled," I said when I dropped off pointe. I rolled back up and examined my feet. They had never gone sickled before in these shoes. I shrugged. "I guess it's time for a new pair."

"I guess it's time for breakfast, since everyone's up," Mrs. Jackson said. My stomach dropped.

**Responses:**

**Balletomane: I don't dance, but I use the techniques excessively in my figure skating (I'm a skater), and I've been struggling with the eating disorder for quite a while now. **

**Everyone: I LOVE YOU PEOPLE!**


	5. Of Coffee And Car Rides

Chapter 5

Annabeth was nervous. I could tell, just by the way her shoes pointed. I hated to think we were that close, even if I knew we weren't. Looking back on it, it might've been the fact that I was a little bit scared of her to that I was studying her so carefully.

The problem starts where I don't know why I'm scared of her. So just chuck that theory out the window, would you? Speaking of out the window, don't even start on how I got that baseball bat.

I have connections, okay?

"So, Annie?" I asked her. Annie seemed like a good and irritating nickname. "What do you want for breakfast?"

Annabeth glared at me through her long blond eyelashes and raised her cup of coffee. "Why do you think I didn't let you take any coffee, Fishface?"

"C'mon, Annabeth!" Paul smacked her on the back, the same way he did to me sometimes when he was feeling quote-unquote "fatherly". He didn't hit her very hard, but Annabeth lurched forward a bit, eyes widened. "You gotta eat something! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!"

"Sorry, Paul, but my family's never really enforced that rule. It's out of bed and out the door in five minutes flat, that's our motto."

Paul frowned. He had often told me that you had to be a certain age to ruin your own life like that. But he didn't say anything to Annabeth.

Speak of the devil. Annabeth was checking the kitchen clock, her pale, gaunt features turned up in surprise. "I have to get to my fitting!"

I yawned. "Who even gets _up_ this early?"

Annabeth shot me a Look and then smiled at Sally. "Mrs. Jackson, where do you keep the car keys?"

"Oh, don't worry, hon! Percy will take you!"

"It's fine. I can drive."

_Hah. Like it matters. _

I ended up having to give her a ride. Whoop-dee-doo.

The car was very, very silent as I pulled into the place Annabeth gave me directions to, some dancing academy that I had heard of on the news once. Annabeth wore a huge neutral coloured sweater (seriously, dude, it almost came down to her knees) over what was probably a leotard (which I thankfully couldn't see because of the huge sweater) , a pair of above-the-knee black legwarmers and cream-coloured boots. Annabeth had this talent for matching neutrals that didn't make her look like an old lady.

One thing that I noticed about Annabeth was that she was pretty skinny. And pretty pale. But mostly skinny. It didn't really bother me though, because a) some people are naturally skinny and b) much to my mother's displeasure, I still didn't care about Annabeth.

But don't ask me why I studied her like a weirdo stalker.

We've been through this before.

I don't know.

We walked through the entrance to the academy. The ceilings were high, and the polished wooden floor was a light, natural oak. On the right was the studio: a complete replica of the entrance hall, except with mirrors going down the side. Fifteen girls took their turns prepping for one of those spinny things Annabeth did when I came down the stairs with my (nonexistent!) baseball bat. Annabeth followed my gaze over to them.

"Fouette preparation," she said. "Irritating to learn. Fun to do. The fitting office is this way." She turned left, down a narrowed hall. The hall was lined with pictures of ballerinas: ones that were painted, ones that were black-and-white, and ones that were in colour that looked like they had been taken in the studio back down the hall.

We entered a small room. Same high ceilings, white walls, and ridiculous light floor as the rest of the academy, but there was a raised platform by one of the walls that included a miniature barre and a mirror.

"May I _help_ you?" A woman asked us. She was about in her mid-twenties, her black hair braided down her back with streaks of gold. She looked like a runner. Her nametag read: **Hi, my name is: ****Circe****. Feel free to ****go kill yourself****. **I suspected it was supposed to read: Feel free to ask me anything.

"Yeah, hi. My name is Annabeth Chase, and I have a fitting scheduled for my practice and performance shoes?"

"Oh. Yes, I'll go get them." Circe's voice was bored. "Wait right here."

When Circe came back, Annabeth slid off her boots and on the shoes. Her feet looked absolutely _dead._ The shoes had (hold on a second. I'm waiting for her to give me the technical terms)…a "high vamp and narrow pointe", and they made her feet look better. Any shoe, really, would make her foot look better. Annabeth stepped onto the raised platform and did a few of those jumpy things and rolled back and forth on her feet for a while.

Then she did the same thing with the black shoes.

This just in from the ballerina: those jumpy things are called echappes.

"They fit just fine," she announced after what was at _least_ a half hour.

"Great," Circe said in her trademark monotonous voice.

_Great,_ I thought in irritation. _More car time with Annabeth._

**Responses:**

**Balletomane: I'll try to incorporate that in. Don't be surprised if I have an extremely subtle way of doing it. And yes, I am a girl. **

**AN: Come visit my polls and profile! **** thanks guys! 33 **

**:: Binna ::**


	6. Catching and Bouncing

Chapter Six

Car time with Percy always spells a bad day. Especially when he nearly gets us into a wreck by almost hitting a wandering black horse. His saddle-tag read: **Trancy the Unicorn: Blackjack Edition**. The rest of the ride back "home" went relatively uneventful. The only thing that happened was when Moves Like Jagger came on the radio and Percy blasted it up full volume.

"Do you mind, Annie? It's my favourite."

I stared at him crossly. Moves Like Jagger was one of my favourites, too, but…well, nobody could make me tell. When we got back to the house, Mrs. Jackson was sitting outside on the porch reading War and Peach (either the editors made a really bad typo, the guy who printed it had no teeth, or I hadn't heard of that one yet) and drinking iced tea.

"Annabeth, did you get everything sorted out?"

"Yes, Mrs. Jackson."

"That's good. There's some iced tea in the refrigerator if you want some, dear. You too, Percy."

"Thanks, Mrs. Jackson." As tempting as iced tea may be, I had to remember not to go near the refrigerator. When we entered the air-conditioned house, I sprinted straight up the steps, and Percy went to the kitchen. Probably to get some iced tea.

I still wasn't accustomed to walking into such a clean room. It would be Annabeth-ized in a few days, I was sure. I set everything down on the silver bed and took my new pink shoes, some thread, a bottle of water, a ribbon roll, and a pair of scissors out of my ballet bag: a huge purple duffel bag with a few dozen re-patches that somehow managed to look like a quilt with handles.

The shoes made a satisfying _crunch_ noise when I pushed the top of the vamps down and began the tedious breaking-in process. I sewed the ribbons in and cut of the platforms. I banged them against the wall a few times, but then, in true me-like fashion, I got lazy and started throwing them against the wall. Surprisingly, they had a bit of a boing factor. I let myself slip into the rhythm. _Slap, clunk, shlllllll, clomp. Slap, clunk, shlllllll, clomp. Slap, clunk, shlllllll, clomp. Slap, clunk-_

Something knocked at my door. "Annabeth?" I threw my shoes against the wall again. _Slap, clunk, shlllllll, clomp. _"Annabeth!" The door opened. _Slap, clunk, shlllllll, clomp. _

"Are you playing catch with the wall?"

_Slap, clunk, shlllllll, clomp. _"No."

"Those shoes looked all new and shiny, earlier. Why are you ruining them?"

"I'm breaking them in, idiot."

"Well…I brought you iced tea."

"Thanks but no thanks, ding-a-ling. I'd rather have my coffee."

_Slap, clunk, shlllllll, clomp._

"You drank my coffee, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

I threw a shoe at him.

"The stuff is awful. God, Annabeth. Learn how to make coffee."

I threw my other shoe at him, and then I walked over and picked them up. I twirled the laces, and Percy stole my other shoe.

"But, seriously, Annabeth. What did you do to these things?"

"I told you already. I broke them in. Or, at least partially broke them in."

"Normally you break shoes in by wearing them, genius."

"Don't talk statistics with me."

"Speaking of statistics, we're starting school tomorrow. Ridiculous, right? Where'd the summer go?"

I thought back to my summer in California. It had been a haze full of light studio floors and the smell of Pine-Sol. It had been turned down meals and doctors' visits. It had been an injured ankle, a bunch of callouses, cups of instant coffee. It had been aromas and wishes. It had been curlers, stage makeup, performances. It had been torture, and I didn't want to go back. But Percy's comment brought a strange type of nostalgia to me. It made me regretful that I didn't enjoy the summer days as much as I should. It made me wonder, if I really tried, could I have made that summer great? It made me think about the strange little moments: the cops falsely accusing Thalia of being on drugs, Piper's weeks on crutches, Rachel's little shoe problems. I looked over at a black feathered headpiece that I had used in our studio's edition of _Swan Lake_. It had been a little unorthodox, but we had made do. I remembered auditioning for the autumn's tweaked version of _Giselle, _where I sprained my ankle. Every good memory had a bad one connected to it: my part as Odette in Swan Lake was a good memory. But right next to it were hours of rehearsals, being criticized about my weight until I nearly gave it all up, and Madame Bashikov's temper tantrums. I refused to miss her. I refused to miss feeling inferior, being told that I could never be perfect. I refused to miss being depressed and lonely. I refused to miss the cramped little studio, so small someone barely had room to do a proper arabesque at barre, even if the stage and backstage had plenty of room. I refused to miss my rival Dakota: a perky little brunette with a perfect turnout and a perfect body. I refused to miss California, because I knew California refused to miss me. It was like that.

"It went back home, Percy. I think the summer went back home."

**balletomane: I'm a little confused about the songfic thing...do elaborate?**

**Ginny: thank you. :) I'm glad you had the strength to get through it.**


	7. A Blue, Blue, Blue Breakfast

**Be happy about these updates. Just saying. Because for the past two weeks I've been typing them with a broken pinkie.**

Chapter Seven

After Annabeth's weird prophetic-spiritual thingie last night, I was pretty freaked out. "It went back home, Percy."

Blond California chicks don't do stuff like that every day.

But today was a little bit different. I was going to take Annabeth to school. Oh the joy.

Actually, I was pretty excited about school. I had signed up for Latin. I took Greek last year, and the teacher said that he thought I would be good for Latin. As for other classes, I was a little behind. I had barely passes my regular class last year, and this year I was nearly sure I would fail. English, at least.

You see, I'm dyslexic. That means that whenever I try to read, words swim in front of my eyes just to make me mad. I also have ADHD, which means that math and history are a bore. Science is a little bit better, but only because I get to blow things up. My schedule looked like so:

Period 1: Latin II

Period 2: Ad. Chemistry

Period 3: Algebra Reg.

Period 4: English Reg.

Period 5: History Reg.

Lunchlunchlunch

Period 6: Gym

Period 7: English Redemp.

That's right. My dyslexia's so bad that, instead of an exploratory or special placement class, I have to take Redemption English. Well, actually, it's not as bad as it could be, because they were thinking of putting me in ESL, which is English for a Second Language. Now that's saying something. I had periods one and six with Annabeth, whose schedule looked like this:

Period 1: Latin II

Period 2: AP Trigonometry

Period 3: AP Chemistry

Period 4: AP History

Period 5: AP English and Literature

Lunchlunchlunch

Period 6: Gym

Period 7: Advanced Art

My mom insists that I show Annabeth around the school, which means that I get to stalk her aaaallll day. Yippee.

Annabeth had been right about one thing though: summer was gone. Even if yesterday had been the last day of summer, it felt like summer had left us months ago. The air had gotten the message: it was chilly and cool, and the leaves were already starting to turn splendid shades of gold and red .

It was hard to wake up in the morning, but I managed. I threw on jeans and a green top and brushed my teeth. I didn't bother to brush my hair. When I got downstairs, Annabeth and my mom were waiting for me. Annabeth, who hadn't touched a single molecule of her "hearty going-to-school" breakfast of oatmeal and raisins, was in her normal matching neutrals: dark gray skinny jeans, black combat boots, and a white-and-black pinstriped cardigan. The only thing that was different was her tank top: a deep red with the letters ΑΘΕ. God, I hoped I could still read Greek and that said: Alpha Theta Epsilon, not A Circle-with-line E. If it was Alpha Theta Epsilon, it would read to be _of the Athenians,_ or _the Children of Athena. _If it was A circle-with-line E, it would read: _Percy's going mad and must have his brain checked for possible errors_, or _stop drinking so much coffee, Jackson._

I hoped the former.

"Percy! I was just about to go up there and check if you were still breathing!" my mother exclaimed. "Eat your hot cereal, dear, we don't have much time."

"It's cold cereal now, actually," Annabeth corrected with a small smirk. "Enjoy your raisins."

"Yeah, about as much as you enjoyed yours." I nodded at Annabeth's untouched bowl of goop. "It's actually later than you think, and we have to be going."

Annabeth grabbed my shoulders and forced me down on the chair. "No it's not. You're only five minutes late, Percy. Enjoy your glop. And while you're at it, would you mind enjoying mine for me? I have something to check." Annabeth waved a _"toodles!"_ wave at me that made me hate her even more and half-danced, half-walked up the stairs.

I stared resentfully at my bowl. "You know what this breakfast needs?" I asked my mom.

"Blue food dye?"

"You got it."

And we were right. The blue dye made the oatmeal look more appealing. I'll bet you that anything looks better blue.

"What is that stuff?" Annabeth wrinkled her nose when she saw the oatmeal, new and improved. "Did you dye it blue?" Her mood seemed to have dropped from _hateful, but teasing_ down to just _hateful._

Okay, so maybe the blue dye wasn't for everyone. But it was sort of an inside joke between me and my mom. When her ex said that there is no blue food, she'd started going out of her way to eat blue. The little things that she did (or dyed) made Gabe so mad: little bowls of blue jelly beans, blue tortilla chips, blueberries (which are actually purple, but I don't have the heart to tell her that). She'd wrap his Christmas gift from the entire family in blue wrapping paper, and give him a blue card with a snowy jelly bean. Even if he was a jerk, he was still sort of family, and a guest at our house. We decided a while ago that we would treat him like one treats a stranger: warily, but politely, because you never know about them.

After I had finished my blue food, Annabeth and I went out to the garage. The only cars there were Gabe's old Chevrolet and the Prius. Paul had taken the old Corvette. He has an expensive taste in cars, which means that nearly everything our family drives is the cost of a normal house. Not that I had a problem with that, it was only for the fact that Paul would _kill_ me if something happened to the cars. That's why he doesn't let me drive the Corvette. I had already wrecked a Prius once. A horse from the same place that other one, Blackjack, was from. Scipio, I believe. I couldn't see the tag all that well because, well, I was sort of crashing a super-expensive car. It was all a peanut-butter coloured blur. I've hated peanut butter ever since.

I grabbed the keys and loaded the car to Goode High School.

**Balletomane: I'm still a little unclear. Do you mean a companion songfic to **_**the A Team**_** by Ed Sheeran? Because that I can do.**


	8. Hunters in Hiding

_**A/N: sorry, this chapter might be a bit cliché, but I promise the rest of the story won't be. :P I have to do this part to get to the rest, sorry.**_

Chapter Eight

Goode High School is a place with busy halls and not-so-friendly people. I learned that quickly.

Percy had pretty much left me at the door. He seemed decently popular. Excessively popular, even. People swamped around him when he entered the building. Choruses of "Yo, what's up, Perce?", "Perce! Dude, howya been?" and even some "So, what are _you_ doing Friday night?" 's filled the halls. Percy shot me a glance that said: _You're on your own, chick._ I leaned against the doorframe, studying my schedule.

"Hi," said a voice from a few feet away. I looked over. A girl was standing beside me. "I'm Zoë." Her posture was awkward and clumsy-looking, but her feet were turned out in a textbook example of First Position. She had wispy, white-blond hair that was pulled back with a Scuncii hairband. Her emerald-coloured eyes were extremely enlarged by her giant black glasses. "Are you new here?"

I chuckled to myself. "It's that obvious?"

"Sort of," she confessed, and adjusted her thin hairband. "I mean, you don't look or act like a New Yorker."

"I'm from California."

"Oh…so…where's your first class?" She pushed her glasses up (honestly, they covered more than half of her face).

"Latin II. Percy sort of abandoned me at the door, so I'm a bit confused."

Her emerald eyes widened. "Percy Jackson? You know him?"

"UH, no. I'm staying with his family for a while."

She shot me a pedophile's glare. "You failed to mention this when you said that you were from California."

I shrugged. "I didn't think it was important. Where's the Latin classroom?"

"I'm going that way, but I take German. It's one room over." The halls were nearly deserted by now, and Zoe led me down a narrow, locker-crammed hallway. "Right over there. Don't be late!"

"Alright, thanks Zoë." I dashed into class before the tardy bell rang. Latin was sort of a blur of names and faces. Mostly, I was thinking about how different all of this was from public school in California. Trig, history, and chemistry were really no different, but the English teacher got right down to business. We had to write an essay on what we did and what we wished we had done during the summer months. I wrote about being in the ballet productions and moving to New York, but I left out the parts about Madame Bashikov and my drastic weight loss. Basically, I left out most of my summer and focused on our studio's demented versions of _Swan Lake_ and _Giselle._ For the part that I wished I could change, I wrote about my ankle injury in the _Giselle _auditions, and how maybe, if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here now. Maybe I'd be back home.

It was to be no shorter than a thousand words. Really, that was no problem. My old AP English teacher had us do a five thousand word essay on this same topic last year. But we got a novel to read this year, and last year, I wasn't given the pleasure. I hate reading. I never know how I get into AP classes. I'm dyslexic and ADHD, so it stands to nature that all teachers believe I'm a demon child.

I looked over at Zoë. She and her friend Phoebe were in Trig and English with me. Both of them were writing furiously, obviously trying to finish the work before the bell. I had already finished my paper, and it was definitely more than a thousand words long.

Having Lunch and Gym back-to-back really was an advantage. It meant that I could catch the 1:00-2:30 class at the Academy (as a replacement for gym), which happened to be on the same street as Goode. This is convenient because I know Percy would never let me use the Prius. I changed quickly and ran across the street.

Zoë was already there when I arrived. Her posture had straightened nicely, and I realized that she was taller than me. Behind her were Phoebe and another girl named Bianca, who reminded me of a younger, less punk/rock version of Thalia. Zoë turned to me.

"You're taking the 1:00 course, too? I didn't know you danced." Zoë's knees still knocked together and her arms bent at awkward angles when she gestured, despite her posture change. I guessed she wouldn't get very far in ballet.

I nodded and started to say, "I also take-" but I was cut off. Madame had swept into the room.

She was a short, thin lady with auburn hair and the same emerald eyes as Zoë, and when she entered, everyone quieted and took their positions at barre, standing in Fifth position. One by one, they stepped forward and curtsied. One of them stumbled. Zoë's curtsy was a bit wobbly. Phoebe and Bianca were identically perfect, along with everyone else in the group. Madame stopped short in front of me.

"New student?" she asked. Her accent made it sound more like: "Nyeew stoodint?"

I curtsied. "Yes, Madame." She sniffed at me.

"Madame, this is Annabeth," Zoë said quickly. Madame sniffed again, and then turned away.

"You'll have to dance especially well, Annabeth," Zoë whispered. "She'll be watching you. You in particular, today."

We went through a barre warm-up: rond jambe en l'air, developpes, various stretches, echappes, the usual. The pointe part of the class was the most interesting, though. We did modified pas de chat combinations, fouettes, grand and tour jetes, and some ridiculously fast footwork. When class was dismissed, we were to curtsy to Madame and shake her hand. I stood in the back of the line, behind Zoë. Honestly, I was a little tentative to curtsy to Madame again. I mean, come on: she had sniffed at me.

But when it was my turn, she pulled me aside. "Nutcracker performance ees in Vinter. Audition. You vood make good Snov Qveen or Sugarplum Fairy," she whispered. I smiled weakly.

I was _not_ anxious to dance _The Nutcracker_.

**Sorrysorrysorry omg don't kill me…this chapter was SUPER cliché… sorry. **

**But seriously: review. Flames are accepted, and the faster I get reviews, the faster I update! T****hanks guys XD**

**By the way, did you see what I did there with Zo****ë****, Bianca, and Phoebe? (Hint: they're all hunters!) I sort of made Madame Artemis, if that makes and sense at all…**


	9. The Trouble with Truffles

**Sorry guys, I got writers' block.**

**Chapter Nine**

It was about 7 p.m. when Annabeth slammed the door shut and tried to bolt up the stairs.

"Where have you been?" My mom asked.

"We've been worried sick," Paul added. I internally smirked. Personally, I'd love to see Annabeth get in trouble. I'm pretty sure my parents thought she was a little angel-girl.

"Ballet. There's a class after school." _Hah._

"Well, I heard that you weren't at lunch today," said my mom. Annabeth shot me a _thanks-a-lot_ look, to which I replied with a _just-doing-my-job_ shrug. "Or gym," she added.

Annabeth smiled slightly. "There's a ballet class at 1:00 to 2:30. That's where I was."

My mom frowned, but Paul took the excuse. "Okay, Annabeth. Do you want some dinner? We have my famous meatloaf." Unlike my mom, Paul could actually cook.

Annabeth hesitated a minute, and then started rambling nervously. "I have a lot of homework to do. It's crazy how much they give out on the first day of school. I have to read the first few chapters of _To Kill A Mockingbird_, which isn't really a big deal because I've read it before, but I have homework from Trig and Latin, too. Percy, did you even understand the charts?"

Lovely, the way she turned everything right back to me. "No. I didn't take Latin I, and I took Classical Greek last year."

"Interesting. So did I."

"Are you fluent?"

Annabeth shrugged. "Relatively."

At that exact moment, the back door flap was broken by my huge mastiff. She's a mastiff-German Shepard mix, and she's nearly chest height with me. Putting it lightly: I'm not exactly short. Taller than Annabeth by a few inches, at least, who was the one to jump backwards as Mrs. O'Leary shook her fluffy head and panted.

Annabeth was pale and shaking, which I found humorous. "Wh-wh-wh-wh-what…?"

"Mrs. O'Leary, my pet mastiff," I said as I tried, in vain, to suppress my chuckles. Annabeth looked like she was about to kill me. "She's huge, but she's really a little French Poodle on the inside."

Mrs. O'Leary sniffed Annabeth, who turned and ran up the stairs.

"I guess that means she doesn't want any meatloaf," Paul sighed. "Have you noticed that she doesn't eat nearly at all? She didn't eat dinner last night, or breakfast this morning. She was missing from lunch, and she just ran away. Frederick said that she has some strange eating habits, but I never thought she would be this difficult to feed." Paul himself was poking at his loaf, seeming perturbed by Annabeth's refusal to eat. "And do you actually think Annabeth was at the studio after school? It's almost seven fifteen!"

"It's possible. I saw the advertisement yesterday about the auditions for _The Nutcracker_ today. She could've been there."

"Who could've been there?" My head whipped around. "Because if it's me you're speaking of, I did audition after the 3:45 pointe class." She did a demi-pointe fouette, grinning. "Now where's that meatloaf?"

Paul, surprised, cut her a piece of the loaf. His loaf _is_ amazing. But I got the feeling that Annabeth was bipolar. Sometimes she looked happy, other times she looked ready to cut your head off. I wasn't so much a fan of the latter as I was of the former.

After a few bites, Annabeth's face went sour. "Paul…what's in this meatloaf?"

"Oh, just some chicken, onions, garlic powder…you know, the usual. Oh, I did use some truffle oil for the sauce. Why?"

Annabeth's eyes widened. "I'm allergic to truffles. Excuse me," she said, and bolted up the stairs.

"I doubt it," I called after her. Paul sighed. My mom even went and followed her.

We waited in silence for a few minutes. I poked at my loaf. After what seemed an hour's wait (it was really only five minutes, but Paul brings a presence that, when held in the right way, makes time seem to stop) mom came down the stairs, Annabeth trailing by only a step.

Annabeth looked a mess. Her face was pale and frightened. The skin on her forearm was scratched to the point of bleeding. An lanyard was being dangled from her hand, and her steps were awkward and very un-ballerina-like. She took slow, shallow, ragged breaths, and her sparkly eyes had lost most of their shine, only replenished by fear. She pulled the sleeves of her huge pink pullover down to cover her lanky, scratched forearms.

She shook her head lightly at me. _Not a word._ Mrs. O'Leary whimpered and nuzzled a book on the dining room table. I hadn't noticed, but Annabeth had left a book in her mad allergy-frenzy.

_Modern and Classical Architecture of the 21__st__ Century._

Interesting.

Mrs. O'Leary sniffed at Annabeth again, and she backed away carefully. The dog followed her backward, still sniffing. Annabeth sniffed back, and Mrs. O'Leary whimpered. Nothing to make a dog retreat like sniffing at it. Annabeth grinned in triumph.

"I told you she's just a little poodle on the inside."

Annabeth shrugged. "I had a dog once. A Doberman. Sweet little thing, but if you sniffed it, all Hades broke loose."

Paul cleared his throat. Mrs. O'Leary continued whimpering in the corner.

"Well," Paul said. "Percy, do you have as much homework as Annabeth?"

I grimaced. "Yeah, sort of. Except, obviously, I don't take Trig or AP English."

Annabeth grabbed my hand and hauled me up the stairs. "Then come with. Actually, wait a second, Percy." She ran back down the stairs and grabbed her architecture book. "Okay, proceed."

**Review Responses:**

**valleylily: A betareader/betawriter is someone who checks your story for mistakes in plot, grammar, spelling, and characters being in or out of character. **


	10. Of Wishing and Perfect (and Never, too)

**Chapter Ten**

**Warning: Chapter could be triggering or make you squeamish.**

**Review Responses: **

**Guest: Since this story is a past tense narrative, Percy and Annabeth have already reached the Ultimate Conclusion (I won't tell you what the Ultimate Conclusion is) he's probably got **_**some**_** sort of ballet knowledge built up there. **

Since homework is homework, and they really is nothing to say about Trig, I won't say a word. I'll just tell you guys about my dream.

I dreamt of the first time I met Ana. Basically, I was dreaming a dream. I was sitting in my backyard, on a bench, reading. The wind was bitter, and it felt like slabs of ice hitting my cheeks.

"Pssst." My head whipped around. The bushes behind me were rustling wildly. "Pssst!" the same whisper came, with much more urgency and longing. "PSSST!" I knelt down in front of the bushes, and a girl's face popped out of them.

Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes were sunken and dark. She was pale enough to shine like the moon.

"Hello?" I asked. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Hello," she replied. "My name is Ana, and I'm here to help. I have a longer name, but everyone calls me Ana." She climbed out of the bushes. "Let me help you, Annabeth. Let me drive you to do better. Perfection is attainable." She extended her hand.

I looked back and forth between her and her hand. I shook.

My dream began to fade into another, and I wished I could really relive that moment, maybe make some changes. Like adding an AK47 and shooting Ana in the head.

My new dream was a current one: auditions yesterday.

We were asked to do some of the choreography to the _Nutcracker_,and if we wanted one of the higher parts, some choreography from another ballet we had done. We did allegro footwork sets on pointe, grande and tour jetes, and allegro echappes from Fifth. Madame taught the dancers auditioning for Clara, Snow Queen, Sugarplum Fairy, or any of the lead males the basic choreography for the opening and closing numbers.

The last thing I dreamt was dancing my part as Odile in _Swan Lake_. Traditionally, Odette and Odile are danced by the same dancer, so I danced both. That's one tradition that, even with Madame Bashikov's sadistic-demented sense of dancing, managed to stick.

I remembered the crowd, the bright stage-lights, the feathered headpiece (a Bashikov addition, of course). I remembered the stench of stage makeup and sitting for hours with Madame Liniqua and watching her sew layer after layer of tulle into my tutu. I remembered doing Odette and Odile variations and lifts over and over again. I remember watching the performance two days later and not believing that I had danced it. As I struck the final pose in the closing number, my dream turned into a nightmare.

Foods began dancing all around me. Fattening foods and things that I'd never eat like cupcakes, bacon, whole milk, burgers, French fries, even some of Mrs. Jackson's blue oatmeal (don't ask). They did fouettes _en pointe_ and the French fry bin even did some of the Odette choreography. The big C itself-Calorie-pulled me into a maddening dance. I was thrown around from food to food. Every food that I managed to look at embedded itself in me. I could feel the calories on my body.

The beginning of _Wintergirls_ became our music.

_"'Dead girl walking," the boys say in the halls._

_ 'Tell us your secret,' the girls whisper, one toilet to another._

_ I'm _that_ girl. I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through._

_I am the library aide who hides in Fantasy._

_I am the circus freak encased in beeswax._

_I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame._

_When I get close, they step back. The cameras in their eyeholes record the zit on my chin, the rain in my eyes, the blue water under my skin. They pick up every sound on their collar microphones. They want to pull me inside of them, but they're afraid. _

_I am contagious."_

The husky voice morphed a really bad interpretation of PSY's Gangnam Style. The foods danced to that, slipping on the sleek floor as they attempted to do the horse-riding dance. In the back of my brain, something registered: _Annabeth, that's your alarm, and that voice is your brother's_. And I jolted awake, sweating and crying and fumbling for my phone to turn off the Gangnam Style alarm. Dreams suck.

I could still feel the foods on me: their chubby, sweaty fingers, the stench of their greasy breath. I could see their feet, arch-less and spilling out of their pointe shoes, and their fat-buried muscles straining to hold their weight. I ran to the bathroom.

_Scale, scale, scale. They must have a bathroom scale here somewhere. Annabeth, look harder._

Dreams like that make me afraid that being in the mere presence of those foods would make me gain weight: double chin, chubby cheeks. It had taken me many months to achieve the ever sought after thigh gap. I gripped another handle and frantically opened another drawer. I looked over to the other side of the bathroom and smiled. _Cabinet._

There was a scale in that cabinet, I found it with ease. Stepping on, I closed my eyes and crossed my fingers. Call me crazy, but the feeling of my heart hammering against my chest as I opened one eye, and then the other, was almost a high to me. I loved it. I peeked at the scale, savoring the feeling of being scared for my weight and the sharp inhalation of my breath as the scale was still too eyelash-obscured and blurry to see.

The scale came into focus for one eye, and then for the other. I breathed out slowly. 94 lbs. I had lost one pound. I began to shake as I stepped off the scale and put it back into the cabinet. Turning on the faucet, I looked in the mirror as I splashed cold water on my face. For a horrifying moment, I didn't see what everyone else saw: high, narrow cheekbones completed with the sunken cheeks that I had envied of Ana. I saw myself as one of the food items I had danced with: a chubby face slick with sweat, using all of my energy to breathe and blink my heavy eyelids.

This part of the weighing wasn't exactly my fave. My mind began to swim; my eyes crossed and went blurry. I leaned against the wall for support, but eventually its "support" consumed me, and I melted into it, sinking to the floor. I grasped the bathtub and came into contact with one of my favourite things in the world: a shaving razor. I flipped the foldable mini-scissors that I carried around everywhere and popped the top of the plastic. I picked the blade up.

It was heavy in my hands, for its size, and just as delicate as a glass sculpture. I held it to my thigh, admiring how wonderful my porcelain skin looked against the shiny metal. I traced an old scar with it. _Every one has a story_, I thought to myself. Only a little pressure. Just pressing down a little bit was how much it took to make a new one. My eyes still blurry, I put that little bit of pressure on the blade and sliced it across my skin. My vision cleared, and I focused on the line. At first, it was just a pale line identical to any of my other scars. Then little beads of blood formed: tiny circles of crimson. They melded into a scarlet line: a smeared, beautiful streak of pure cerise. It inched its way across the circumference of my thigh, which, gap or no gap, still looked huge.

My eyesight was cleared now, and my mind was sharp and buzzing, but that didn't matter anymore. I kept slicing at my thigh, and when that one was nice and red, the other. Finally, I leaned back against the cool marble of the wall, breathing heavily.

I don't know whether this is typical of most cutters, but I reached into the cabinet and got a box of Band-Aids. I really didn't want any questions about it. The Jacksons had Mrs. O'Leary, and I'm quite sure that she's no cat.

After I'd cleaned up my mess, I went back to my room and took out my pointe shoes. They had served me well at auditions yesterday, and I practiced both the Snow Queen and the Sugarplum Fairy's parts after stretching out my Achilles and putting on the coffee. One by one, the Jacksons trickled into the room: Mrs. Jackson and Paul, followed by Percy about half an hour later. School had begun again.

**Sorry about the late update, I've been pretty busy preparing for Hurricane Sandy over here in the Old Dominion State.**


	11. Snowflakes and Nutcrackers

**Chapter Ten**

**Guest: Thanks, I'm glad you like it.**

School is school is school is school. The most exciting thing that happened in class was when Mr. Joves caught his lab coat on fire and started rolling on the floor.

Lunch, however…

I hate school lunch. And it's not because I'm that type of loser that sits alone with nobody to talk to, I've got plenty of friends. You'll meet them in a second. No, it's that typical school-food. Then there are the lunch ladies. I swear, one of them wants to kill me.

Her name is Mrs. Stheno (we all call her Beano) and she reminds me (quite uncomfortably) of a teacher I had in elementary school, Mrs. Dodds. They both wore the same leather jacket (which looked a good bit like their leathery skin) and had the same thin, dark hair and narrow topaz eyes. They both seem about in their fifties, and have the same sarcastic use of the word "honey". The only difference between the two was that one of them wore a hairnet and apron.

You had to sort of delicately pass her to escape her hate-dripping words. I had that down to a science.

When I arrived at my table, the boys were talking about the Snowflake Dance. First, a word about the boys. Then the Snowflake.

'The Boys' are basically my entire group of friends: Frank Zhang, a Chinese-Canadian boy with a ridiculous baby-face and a ready smile; Travis and Connor Stoll, who we all call the "Funny man twins"; Grover Underwood, a redhead with a wispy goatee and slight limp; Jason Grace, the blond pretty boy; Leo Valdez, the practical joker; Nico DiAngelo, the gothic cool-dude; and me, your typical sarcastic-lunatic kid.

Okay, to the Snowflake. The Snowflake is the winter formal, and everyone was buzzing about it at least five months in advance. It's a HUGE deal. Everything about Christmas always is. If you wait too long to ask for a date, you end up going alone. Even the loser girls are taken pretty soon, by the end of October at latest.

Back to the boys. The table was absolutely buzzing with news about dates and the lack thereof. The boys and I were actually pretty popular around the school, but only the desperate girls went out and asked for a date.

"I heard Karri Goldman doesn't have a date yet," Nico grinned.

"Forget Karri," said Connor. "I'm going for your sister."

"Bianca? Hah. That new girl probably doesn't have a date yet," said Connor. He sounded like he was afraid of being overheard. The second he did say it, the entire table burst into whistles.

"Who, Annabeth?" I asked, sliding into the seat between Jason and Connor.

"Blondie?" Grover asked.

"The Californian?" Jason added.

"So, Annabeth," I clarified.

"That girl is _antisocial._ How do you know her?" asked Travis. "I asked her what she had first period, and she slammed her locker open in my face."

"She's staying with my family." Mouths dropped. "But you're right, Travis: she is antisocial. Well, no. Not as much antisocial as crabby."

"So…who's your victim going to be? For the Snowflake?"

"I'm not sure," I shrugged. "All the good girls are gone."

The boys burst into laughter, and Jason elbowed Leo in the ribs. "Last year's girls, hah!"

Connor slid into the last seat at the table. "It's true. I was thinking of asking that new girl."

"Weren't we all?" sighed Leo.

"No," Travis and I replied at the same time.

The thing about Annabeth: it was like she had tunnel vision. When she looked at you, you got the feeling she could read your mind. When she was in good humour, her eyes were so light that they were nearly white, with little, beady pupils, and the inside of her eye was lighter than the outside. More often, when she wasn't in such a good humour, they were darker. I had seen them change colour within seconds. And anyone who didn't spend as much time with her as I did would be attracted to her: she was gorgeous, and when she danced or walked, she was like ivy: delicately winding and tracing through motions. She moved like honey. Yes, she moved like honey and stung like a bee, and nobody knew that.

"Isn't she a dancer?" asked Nico. His eyebrows were bunched up.

"Yeah, I heard that, too," Frank put in.

"She is," I agreed. "She's a dancer and she's a genius."

"I know," Jason grinned. "She's my lab partner in Chemistry. It seems like she's already taken it."

"I think she has. I know she's had Trig before, and Latin II."

"I wonder who's going to end up with her for the Snowflake," muttered Connor.

"Probably nobody. She doesn't seem like the type to go for a school dance."

"But she's a dancer, isn't she?" _Ha hah, funny pun, Leo._

"That's another thing. She's going to get into _The Nutcracker_ and she'll be rehearsing the night of the Snowflake, probably. I doubt she'd even go," I said.

"That sucks. She's probably gotten around fifty offers already, though," muttered Travis. If you haven't noticed already, the Stolls love to mutter things.

"She'll probably get a hundred more, and then some repeats, and turn them all down. Besides, if anyone, Percy's the best fit with her." Grover started to laugh hysterically.

I choked on my milk.

"Come on, Percy. You know you two could be the new power-couple, now that Savannah and Link have left. Especially because she _lives_ with you."

I shook my head. "No. There is no _way_ I am going to the Snowflake with that moody, deceitful-"

"Incredibly hot," added Travis.

"-Short-tempered, infuriating-"

"Incredibly hot."

"-conceited blond girl."

'"You forgot to mention that she's incredibly hot."

"Yeah, but _you_ didn't."

**A/N:**

**Sorry, guys: this chapter is sorta short… :/**

**And sorry about not updating last weekend, I'm still alive, but the play I was doing opened, so I didn't have any time to work on it during the week. Thanks for your…non-homicidal-ness.**


	12. Of Drugged Turtles

**Chapter Twelve**

Most people might post _Corps List _or _Dancer's List _or even a _Cast List_. Something of the sort may be put up. Madame, however simply posted _List_. Not a _List_ or the _List_, but simply _List_, which I was currently (well, at the time it was current, anyway) scanning.

There was quite a bit of time before I spotted my name, and when I did, I wasn't exactly pleased.

_Understudies:_

_First Understudy: __Annabeth Chase_

_Second Understudy:__ Madeline Brown_

_Third Understudy:__ Ashley Sparhawk_

It took me a while. Honestly, it did. But I got over it, eventually. At the moment, however, I was boiling mad. I went to my special corner: the one where I did my homework and drank coffee between lessons, and put on my pointe shoes. I felt a bit like I was having an out-of-body experience: like a disembodied mind in a disem-minded body. Like I didn't belong in my current form.

The shoes pinched a blister. It was one of those really annoying ones, the ones right above the big toe. For me, they never seemed to be able to go away. But, I expected I would have plenty of time to let it heal, considering that I'm an _understudy._

It's not like I always got a good part. Sometimes I had been stuck in _corps_. But I had danced so well yesterday. I had been near perfect. That's what I thought, anyway. Perhaps it was the fact that I wasn't quite skinny enough. That could be it.

"Did you hear?" Zoë squealed. Her black hair was in a disarrayed bun, and her glasses slipped off her nose when she looked at her feet. "I got Sugarplum Fairy," she whispered, retrieving her glasses.

"That's wonderful." I tightened my pointe shoe a bit. Really, I was trying to be happy for her. Honest. But I couldn't be.

"What did you get, Annabeth? Did you get Snow Queen?"

I bit the inside of my hollow cheeks. "No. I'm…I'm an understudy."

Zoë dropped her legwarmer. "Oh." We stretched in silence. My Achilles tendons were feeling a bit tender. I made a mental note to stretch those last.

My running shoes were almost worn out, I noticed. They were a nice pair of shoes, Saucony with a green and blue design. It _had_ been a while since I got them. I decided to buy a new pair later.

Sometimes, I thought to myself, you just have to accept the results and strive for the better. Maybe I hadn't gotten anything good in this ballet. Perhaps I never would, in New York. There were more people to contend with, more dancers in my pointes class, more fighters to fight. And they fought well. Some might let a mishap like this destroy them. I decided not to. Of course, being an understudy would be thoroughly embarrassing. I would hate it, I knew. But the problem with living is that it's a dead-end job, with twists and turns all its own. You may never get promoted, but a true loyal employee would never quit, because she didn't know what would happen next. Curiosity is the downfall of many, but for a few of the lucky, it is the copia of all things good and well. Certainly, living got tiring. Deadlines, mental ones, constantly tingeing your brain with doubt. But there was a part of your brain meant for that, the strong part, the one that never quits.

My problem was that Ana occupied that part of my brain.

Our modified Pas de Chat combinations were no fun anymore. I slipped during the fouettes more often than I had when I was learning them. Part of my head was screaming at me, the other part was cowering in the corner.

Boy, would I have a headache when I got home.

Home being a relative word, of course.

_Skinny girls always come up on top, _Ana whispered.

_SHUT UP,_ yelled the screaming part of my brain.

_I know_, said the cowering bit.

I ran into a wall, and the girl beside me snickered.

She reminded me perfectly of Dakota. She was pretty and skinny with brown hair and blue-green eyes, but her pointe shoes were pretty much dead, and her legwarmers were practically threadbare. Her name was Madeline Brown, and she was Dakota without the large sum of cash.

The afternoon class was no better than the lunchtime one, and I had a whole bunch of homework, which sucked because it was the second day of school.

The rehearsal was the worst. When I tried to focus, it brought me down farther. My grande jetes were sloppy, and my tour jetes were even worse. I slipped off pointe so often that I gave up trying, and then Madame got on me for "not doo-eeng the moovments een pointe like evvvvvery von else".

Perhaps it was getting to be a bit too much, but Ana certainly didn't know that.

_Freak,_ she whispered. _Ugly, fat, stupid. You're so screwed up, Annabeth. _

A small African-American girl by the name of Hazel Levesque was to dance Clara. She was probably in Pointes One or so, and she did dance very well. But she looked at me like I was a turtle on crack when I said hello to her.

My people skills may need a bit of work.

**Read and Review, please. It's taking me a bit longer to write, sorry.**


	13. Oppan Leo Style!

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Thanks, balletomane0606 for one of the scenes in this chapter! :) **

I didn't really pay attention to the fact that Annabeth never ate. I didn't pay attention to the fact that she never showed up at lunch, or the fact that she was refusing to wear shorts or dresses. I figured that last bit might have been a personality problem. Some girls just _don't_ wear dresses.

In fact, I never paid much attention to Annabeth at all. But the boys surely did.

So when Annabeth suddenly decided to come to lunch one day, they didn't let me ignore her.

"Californian at twelve-straight," Connor whispered. Travis whistled.

"Are you _sure_ you're not asking her to the Snowflake?" Nico muttered.

I rolled my eyes. Ever since that fateful day when the boys found out about the fact that I live with Annabeth and _don't_ find her irresistibly hot, it's been bugging them to no end and they decided that they needed to torment me about it. Truth being, she _is_ pretty hot. But you'll see why I don't like her in a second. But, for now, of course being a pretty curious person, I had to go find out why Annabeth just suddenly was _there._ So I went over and talked to her.

"Why are you here?"

Annabeth glared at me. "Haven't we been over this?"

"No," I snapped. "I meant, in the lunchroom, at this hour. Why are you _here_?"

Annabeth just rolled her eyes. "Madame caught the flu and dismissed us for the day."

"So, where are your little ballerina buddies?"

To my delight, she glared at me. "That is none of your concern."

"Does everyone in California talk like that?"

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Like what?"

"All smart-like and shrewd."

She looked at me from below her eyelashes. "Does everyone in New York talk like you do?"

I tilted my head. "What do you mean?"

She then proceeded to give a speech in a really horrible New York accent. "Eeeehhhh, Bob-bay! 'ow ya doooowin?"

"We don't talk like that."

"You sure?"

Behind Annabeth, I caught the boys making wild gestures for me to bring her over there.

"Hey, Annie? Why don't you meet my friends?"

She shook her head, then sighed and got up. "I'd rather not, but I suppose I don't have much of a choice, do I?" When she turned around, all of the boys except for Leo stopped gesturing abruptly. Leo's Latino North-Pole-Elf face immediately turned a fantastic candy-cane like shade of red and he began doing the Gangnam Style in attempt to hide his gesturing.

Jason hit his face with his hand, and Annabeth raised an eyebrow at me like, _are all of your friends this socially awkward?_ I shook my head and led her over.

"Eeeeehhh, sex-ay laydee, Op-op-op-oppan Leo style!" Leo sang.

"Leo," Jason said, placing a hand on Leo's shoulder. "I don't know how to say this politely, so I won't. Do shut up."

"Leo's ADHD," I explained.

Annabeth sighed in relief. "Good. Otherwise, I might have contacted a guidance counselor. But I know how ADHD feels. Hi, Leo, I'm Annabeth." She extended an arm.

Leo just stared at her.

"Leo," Frank whispered. "Leo, shake her hand."

Leo shook Annabeth's hand.

"Annabeth," I said. "Seeing as you've already introduced yourself to Leo, this one is Frank, the Chinese-Canadian babyfaced dude; Jason, blondie; Travis and Connor, the Twins…" I introduced her to the entire crew. Annabeth clearly wasn't enjoying it, but she said hello to every one of them.

And then she left.

"Is she normally that…irritating?" Nico whispered. I nodded at him.

"Normally more."

It was odd, having Annabeth home so early. Not really bad, just strange. It was strange, having her practice ballet so early, before dinner. It was strange, eating an afternoon snack with her.

That was the strangest bit: the afternoon eating. She arranged her various berries in a floral design, then sat back to look at them.

"Aren't you going to eat those?" I nodded at her berries.

"No, they're too pretty to eat." She sprinted off upstairs.

My mom came down right after Annabeth ran up and looked at Annabeth's bowl of berries. I put my hands up, like, _I don't know, I didn't do it._

My homework wasn't too hard, except for English. I have a certain loathing of that subject. It just hates me, I guess. Which serves to right, because I _hate _doing homework. When I went downstairs to get a cup of iced tea, Annabeth was listening to some instrumental music.

I popped my head into her silver-y room. "What are you listening to? It sounds like a fairy in here."

She blinked at me. "Tchaikovsky." Then proceeded to slam the door in my face.

_OOOOKAAAAAYYY..._

Well, at least the tea was good.

Autumn was a time of living in the past because we were too depressed to face the future, I'd concluded, and Annabeth certainly fit that bill. It's not like she was blatantly depressed. I didn't think that she was depressed at all. But she certainly seemed scared, and that was another part of autumn that most people tried to get around. Some people have a fear of spiders, or heights, or being chased by timber wolves on a newly waxed floor while wearing socks. I was afraid of autumn. It represented everything I hated: school, death, school, cold, school.

And, believe it or not, ninety percent of that 'school' part is English. It's because I'm dyslexic.

The other ten is calculus.

Annabeth seemed to like Trig. She said she'd taken it before. Maybe numbers just worked better for her than for me.

Her dancing was infuriating. Her speaking was infuriating. Her glaring was infuriating. Her smooth walking motions were infuriating. I hated Annabeth, with all of everything that I owned. But there was still something about her that made me wonder how I could have ever lived without her. I hated her presence. But on the odd occasions when she smiled, I could see a side of her that I believed anybody rarely got to see. She could be happy. I didn't know, however, what was preventing her.

She was growing thinner and frailer. I could hear her cry every once in a while in the middle of the night. It's not that I really cared about her. I promise, I don't. But I sort of felt sorry for her.

She could be happy. But what was preventing her?

She'd be happy, if I had to shove rainbows up her nose and force feed her glitter myself.

**I EXIST! And I Betaread/write. No, really: if you're interested, send me a story. I get bored. This week's been pretty boring. You can tell, because I'm on time. **** Don't forget: I EXIST! LOL best inside joke ever.**


	14. Of Crazy Garden Hippie Ladies

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Warning: for the purpose of the story and plot line, Calypso is **_**extremely**_** out of character. I know somebody's going to complain, so just putting it out there.**

**Thanks to balletomane0606 for the new story icon! :****3**

It wasn't like I was miserable, in New York. Some aspects of it were better than back home. No stupid brothers, no annoying parents, no Dakota. But here, in New York, there was so much more to contend with. In a way, it was good. I had bitten more than I could chew, entering the world of ballet, I thought. I knew now how god-awful the real world was. I was a skeleton-like fish in a pond as big as the Pacific. There were plenty more fish in the sea, and I figured that most of them lived in New York.

But the practices were getting to be tedious. The movements redundant. The callouses monotonous. Even the street lights and blowing horns in the City that Never Sleeps got to be normal, after a while. The weeks had morphed into months. The days were being counted down until _The Nutcracker_, at the studio, and the Snowflake at school.

I didn't understand what was so big about that dance. It's just a dance, really. All school dances are, always have been, and always will be the same: the way they dance at them makes me want to hand them all poles. Even in middle school, it had been. Even at Formals, it had been. Even at chaperoned dances, it had been. And probably always will be.

And it's not like I wasn't excited about the other dance, _The Nutcracker._ But I had a bit of a backstage role, if you know what I mean; I wouldn't get to dance. So I thought, at least, and later I decided that anything was possible during flu season in New York.

One day, about a week before our performance, our Sugar Plum Fairy, a girl by the name of Reyna, sneezed in the middle of a tour jete and landed on her ankle. It ended up being broken, and with the dance so close and no time for her to recover, it was "up to zee oonderstoodies," as Madame had said. That meant me.

That meant that I had to get the costume fitted that same day.

And _that_ meant weighing, and measuring, and the torment of the Lady from Downstairs.

The Lady from Downstairs was our costume lady. She designed costumes for ballet dancers, figure skaters, and gymnasts, and she was as mean as the Grinch and as hard as a brick. All the dancers hated her. Senior dancers like Reyna dismissed her words with an eye roll and focused on Madame. That's what I thought I would be doing. But the dancers below Pointes Three cried because of her. They gossiped: apparently, she called this anorexic girl from Pointes Two fat and ugly, and called another girl from Pointes One a stupid twit.

I didn't think that I would really care much at all. One girl, the same dancer that, earlier, had looked at me like I was a drugged turtle, even wished me luck.

"Haah-zell?" Madame called nasally. Hazel then gave me a nervous smile and danced off, light as a feather.

Everyone seemed to have been affected by the flu recently. Madame was getting more nasal than normal, Zoë was getting paler, and even Percy was sneezing out of turn. Apparently, I was the only one that wasn't infected with it, which gave me no excuse not to eat.

The Lady from Downstairs was waiting for me when I got there. The staircase down was a bit disturbing: like an old movie or something, one of those creaky ones that breaks and then the characters fall into a deep pit. But the Lady was actually quite pretty: a brown-haired lady about nineteen to twenty-one (I couldn't make up my mind on which), dancer-like in stature and posture. But the way she studied you made you want to hate her right there and then: intense blue eyes the colour of seawater, slicing straight through every lie in your head. There was a single silver flower that illuminated the back of the room, while the beaded curtains also reflected a light that didn't seem to exist. Until the Lady flipped the light switch, that was. Then there was plenty of light in the room.

It was a hippie room. No offense to her, but it was. A magical, gardening, gothic hippie-room. The costume designs were to the right, and there were a few "possibility" papers stuck across the walls. To the left was the magical gardening hippie bit. There was a huge star-and-moon decal on the wall, and incense was burning. But it was all either black or bright neon. And there were a few pairs of gardening gloves thrown about across the room, and a shovel impaled in the wall.

"Are you the understudy?" She spoke in a clear, soft voice, and I didn't see how any of the things that I'd heard could be true. I nodded, and she shook her head sadly. "What has she resorted to?"

This is where my pride got the better of me. "What do you mean, what has she resorted to?" I snapped.

She glared at me. "I mean a fat little freak like you."

I took in a sharp breath and bit my lip. "Am I here to be fitted or insulted?"

She smiled in the way that girls always smiled at each other: cold and unfriendly, because most of us didn't know how to smile properly at all, anyway. "A little bit of both, this is my specialty. Try this on." She handed me a hanger with the Sugar Plum Fairy costume hanging off of it.

The tutu was a pure, clean white: almost the exact costume of the Snow Queen. The only difference was, the tulle of the tutu's skirt had pink marbled through it, and deep pink gemstones decorated the corset-like bodice of the piece. Thin bits of gold were braided up the bodice itself, giving sheen to the clean costume. I had to keep myself from gaping at it, and I took it delicately.

When I tried it on, I found that it actually had to be brought in a little bit, which was no problem for the Lady, whose name I found was Calypso. I thought it suited her: mysterious, with a bit of rude genius and magic.

She also had me fitted for the performance shoes, because my black silk ones simply wouldn't do for the Sugar Plum Fairy. She brought out a pair of silky gold ones my size and decorated them with the same thin braided gold that was on the tutu.

"Come to me before the show. I'll coat them with golden glitter," she said. I nodded.

Even once I was back at the Jackson's, her words haunted me. _A fat little freak like you._


	15. The Horrors of Mistletoe

**Chapter Fifteen**

**If anyone catches my amazing intentional word slips, they are awesome and they need to leave a comment.**

We had managed to make Annabeth eat at Thanksgiving, though she was cross with us for weeks afterward. Sometimes I really don't know what her problem is.

Thanksgiving is always a pretty memorable event around here, so I'll take the time to explain it.

The table was set. The turkey had been roasting for hours (somewhere at a store near us). The stuffing smelled heavenly (Auntie Gottschalk had brought it in: she has a cooking show on the Food Network). To our right, desserts had been set up on a table: pecan, apple, sweet potato, and pumpkin pies brought in by Aunt George and Uncle Sally, who were from the South and therefore pronounced 'pecan' and 'potato' weird. On the edge was a bowl of blue chocolate chip cookies, one of the only edible things my mom had made for the holiday itself.

There was a table set for seven, one more than the usual. I still got a little bit mad about that, every once in a while. And the conversation kept heading back to me and Annabeth. Gottschalk absolutely _tormented_ us: "How do you like Annabeth, Percy?" I didn't think _not at all_ would be an appropriate answer, so I told her that I liked Annabeth just fine. "How's NY for you, Annabeth?" Annabeth nodded and said that it was alright.

Truth was that Annabeth had grown on me a little bit. By that, I mean she wasn't _absolutely miserable_ to be around by now, just _really annoying_. But by now, it was mid-December, Christmas exactly ten days away. School had let out already, thank god. I had all of my gifts bought and already under the tree. Annabeth's were there, too. I think that everyone in my family had their gifts under the tree already. Normally, we were pretty eager for Christmas to come. But we _always_ waited until it was December to put up the tree. Always. Nothing ruined Christmas spirit more than getting *shudder* _used to_ the decorations. They had to be relatively new.

The wreaths were hung above all of our doors: Annabeth's was silver, mine was red and green, and mom and Paul got a festive traditional evergreen with little pinecones through it. Annabeth and I each got a little tree to put in our rooms. The green clashed horribly with my normal ocean-blue theme, but, hey: ho ho ho, and all, right?

Annabeth's had a present under it: a small, two inch high box wrapped in green snowflakes. I figured it might be something for her family that she was going to ship after Christmas.

Speaking of Snowflakes, the dance had gone quite interestingly. Near the end, I'd actually considered asking Annabeth, but I decided that I wasn't _that_ desperate. Mom and Paul wanted me to be that desperate, though. On the night of the Snowflake, right after Annabeth had come back from ballet, mom popped the question.

"Why don't you take Annabeth to the Snowflake, Percy?"

Annabeth, thankfully, saved me. "It's alright, Mrs. Jackson, we have a costume practice today before our first dress rehearsal tomorrow. I just came back to drop off my stuff and pick up my tutu and shoes, and I have to be going again."

"You're not even staying for dinner?" asked Paul.

Annabeth sighed wistfully. "I wish I could, I really do. But Madame doesn't like to think that we have lives outside of ballet. Now, I must get going. Goodbye." Despite her quite thorough apology, she made a hasty exit, out with the tutu in one of those little plastic dress-holder thingies.

I'd tell you the correct word for it, but Annabeth's sitting here smirking about it, so I won't give her the satisfaction.

It's not like the dance was miserable, though, even if I _was_ the only one of the boys without a date. Travis had managed to snag Katie, Connor Bianca, Frank and Jason both with friends of theirs: Hylla (I think her sister was a dancer. Did I not hear of her breaking her ankle?) and Kinzie. Leo came with this outcast girl named Echo, who, though very quiet, has nice hair, and Nico with one of those theater kids, a girl called Otrera. I must say, they made a nice shadow-like dancing pair. Both of them showed up in black. Very proper, for a school formal that celebrates the joyous winter season, isn't it?

Annabeth didn't get home until very late that night. Not that it bothered me.

Christmas was now officially on the way. Initiating fa-la-la-la-las and ho-ho-hos and all that.

Annabeth was spending more time at home with us. She and I even made Christmas ornaments once: I made her a crude pair of white and gold ballet slippers, and she made me a miniature Christmas tree with miniature ornaments.

She and my mom shared an irritating love of sappy Christmas movies. How many times I had seen Krissy Kringle and her Naughty or Nice book this year, or the Mistle Tones and the Snow Belles.

Gah. Father Christmas, save me.

Alright, I admit: they consider me a bit of a Grinch. Don't get me wrong, I love the giving season and all, whatever or another, but it got ruined after watching _TWENTY OF THE SAME CHRISTMAS MOVIE IN ONE SITTING. _That's what I don't like about Christmas: it gets ruined too fast, too early. And that's why Annabeth and my mom called me the Grinch, but really, I'm _not that Grinchy_.

Annabeth also dragged us through one of the New York City Ballet Company's _Nutcracker _performances, where I had my scariest incident yet with mistletoe.

It goes like this:

Annabeth and I were walking through the building after the _Nutcracker_. It had cleared out nicely, believe it or not, and there were only a few people around, most of them elderly. Annabeth and I were arguing.

"Honestly, Percy, it's like you don't even understand the story. Clara and the Nutcracker-"

"Oh, no, I understand the story perfectly well, I just choose not to-"

Annabeth turned around and paused for a moment, hands on her hips. "Then why don't you-"

She was interrupted by and elderly lady, who touched me on the shoulder and pointed upwards. Annabeth and I both glanced up. Hanging, fifteen feet above us, on a string of golden wire, was the deadly mistletoe. Annabeth blushed madly and scooted away from me, but just to make her mad in public; I grabbed her arm before she could get far away and kissed her on the cheek. The elderly lady chuckled.

That night, Annabeth actually slapped me in the face, to which I just laughed. Believe me; her expression under the mistletoe had been well worth it.

**Ta-da! Masterpiece of my fever-induced hallucinations! What do you think of the mistletoe scene? Did you catch my early intentional word slips? Leave me a comment anyways? Love you all, thanks! **


	16. Italicized Dreams

**Chapter Sixteen**

**Thanks for you awesome-esque people who noticed: genderbender names! Aunt George and Uncle Sally. In honour of my math teacher, who uses those as word problem examples. **

"You never _did_ tell me what happened," I muttered at Zoë. She'd pretty much expected me to think that her giving up the part of Sugar Plum Fairy would be _totally normal_, but of course, I'm not_ entirely crazy_, so I _must enquire._ Alright, I'm getting a little bit out of my mind. I admit it. I just use _too much_ italic. Percy had noticed, too. After he had kissed (!) me, he often reminded me that I put too much emphasis on words.

But I thought that emphasis was deserved, in this case. Zoë had been just randomly demoted from Sugar Plum to Snow Queen. She couldn't have _just given it up_, because, really, who does that? Especially a dancer. And slipping from the most desired role in the _Nutcracker_, even into the second-most-desired role, was just a _wee bit_ too much unlike a real dancer.

"Maybe I just wanted Snow Queen."

I rolled my eyes. "We both know that just _doesn't happen_."

"Maybe it did."

"And Madame would never let you switch roles. She gave everyone their role for a reason and wants them to dance that part. A Sugar Plum being Snow Queen for absolutely no reason is completely out of this world."

Zoë puffed a breath. We were outside the studio, early on a Saturday morning. The windows still looked like Jack Frost had painted his little pictures all over them. The sun hadn't even risen yet. Our arms were full with our dance bags and coffees. The nature of the place said _Nutcracker_, if nothing else in New York did. The studio was a large building on a highway, which was totally New York style, but Calypso (our resident magic hippie gardener) made it look like some sort of island resort on the outside. Even in the winter. It was actually quite a disorienting effect: feeling like you're in a rain forest while your hands are getting frostbitten. It was like a clock that ticked and tocked at different frequencies, or times, dimensions, or missed a tick or tock altogether, so you got something like: tick…tock…TICK…tOck…ticktoCKTICKTICKticktocK… It was so horrible that it turned your brain into a sort of mush. That's what the rainforest, in the middle of Manhattan, in _winter_, felt like.

"It was Reyna," Zoë said, at last. Reyna was our new Sugar Plum, whom I had taken over for when she sniffed off the dance floor. It had been oddly amusing, in a twisted sort of way. Don't comment. Still mostly sane here. "It's not like she's rude or anything, just _competitive_. And she's _always_ gotten the main part. I don't know. Madame never said anything, just told us to switch places. I'm not _that_ upset, really. Snow Queen is great, too."

I shook my head. Zoë was too much of a kindhearted person to be a dancer. I'd have been upset. I'd have _asked_ Madame some questions. Given, I probably wouldn't get the answers, but I'd _ask_. I'd drive her crazier than Boo Radley, if I had too. But Zoe was happy, in her own strange way, I supposed. Her costume was so much like the Sugar Plum's: pure and clean white, with golden embroidering in the form of small snowflakes. As much as I didn't like Calypso, you had to admit: the little bugger had style, and she was _not_ afraid to show it.

Zoë took a sip of her coffee before unzipping her bag. "The opening night is arriving..." she sighed. "I don't think any of us are ready."

I shook my head. Even in the absence of schoolwork and homework, there were simply _not enough_ dancing hours in the day. I'd dance in my free time at the Jacksons', when I couldn't come over to the studio. The Jacksons were often occupied: Paul never seemed to take a break from his work, Mrs. Jackson was always out somewhere or another, and Percy was pretty much as brain dead as a turnip. For whatever reason, whenever I looked at Percy, I flashed back to his friends. Leo, mostly, and his attempt at dancing.

Oh, for the love of all things good, he needs ADD pills.

I agreed with Zoë. The rehearsals had been getting more and more frantic, over the time, and the other two understudies were being used, due to the flu season. We'd need more dancers, if anything else happened within the course of four days.

The _Nutcracker _had embedded itself as a music box in my head. I didn't like it, but in all fairness, it had almost drowned out Ana.

I'd lost seven more pounds since the beginning of school. And then I'd stopped. Three more. That's it. I hadn't weighed myself in a week, and I hadn't eaten anything above ten calories in one sitting for just that long. I hoped that, if I avoided weighing myself, I could avoid the bad news. I didn't like staying at the same weight. But _gaining_ was the worst bit.

I'd been walking Mrs. O'Leary and running on treadmills. Stage lights add ten pounds, you know. And they certainly didn't help when you weren't skinny in the first place.

The warm ups were traditional, in the studio. Even the ones I practiced with Zoë. They got to be tiring.

When I signed up for dance, when I was five, I never thought that I'd get tired of ballet.

And in four days, we'd all need to be ready. We'd all need to have _absolutely everything_ in place.

We'd already sold tickets. A whole lot of people from Goode were coming: Reyna and her sister, Percy and his crowd, Zoë's hipster buddies. I'd secretly invited Auntie Gottschalk. She happened to be one of my favourite Jacksons.

So, with four days to go, only four to survive, I shoved Ana to one side of my brain and had dancing on the other. She never left me, though. In _some_ way, at _any given time_, I was able to think of at least thirty reasons for me _not to eat._

_ DARN. NOW I'M STUCK IN ITALICS. _

**Read and Review! :P**_  
_


	17. Irritations and A's

**Chapter Seventeen**

**Your most commonly asked questions: ANSWERED! A whole bunch of questions/comments that I've gotten from people over PM and/or review. **

**Ana is the personification of Anorexia Nervosa. She is the little voice in your head telling you that you could always eat a little bit less. Often times, with anorexia, the anorexic will see Ana as "ideally thin" and "perfect" but "sort of a jerk". **

**Believe me, there's Percabeth coming! It may not be too soon, nor may it be by the bucketloads, but it **_**will**_** be there. I'm just not that type of author, and it takes me a while to get anything good out. Putrid romance block. I'm using all my shipping powers on my Susan x Teatime fic.**

**Yes: this story is **_**dark**_**. Dark is what I **_**do**_**. **

**I apologize for the chapter length. I have starting and stopping points planned out so that the timeline matches up with Christmas Day (the Wednesday after Christmas, rather). I try to keep every update around 1000 words.**

**I try to update consistently. I update on the weekends. But, I've been having to update on Wednesdays every once in a while here and there because I missed two weeks once, and I have to make up for that to have my updates on schedule: I'm having the "grand climax" of the story the Wednesday after Christmas, December 26****th****. It'll be the 26****th**** here, in the US, anyway. Not sure about Hong Kong.**

**Alrighty, that's it for my rambling. And now that we've all survived the Apocalypse, please don't shoot the author.**

The date is now December 23rd, and Annabeth is officially freaking out. It's not so much that she's freaking out, it's more of how she's freaking out on the _inside_ and not letting the rest of us see it. Paranoia, we call it, in good old New York. Whenever she hears something that reminds her in any way of the show, her eyes will get all wide and she'll clench her jaw and ignore the rest of us for a few minutes.

I'll admit, right here, right now: it was getting on my last nerve.

Annabeth didn't know how to deal with stress, I'd presumed. She'd tap her feet and bite her nails and twirl her hair. It made me want to slap her.

But I couldn't, because that would be _impolite_.

And, besides, a simple poke would probably do enough damage: she was lighter than a feather, now, and so skinny you'd mistake her for a skeleton. She was….what's the word…wasting.

Not that I cared. Sniff.

Alright, I'll admit, I cared a little bit. Not a whole lot, but it still wasn't pleasant to see Annabeth destroying herself. She'd deny it when I asked, she'd say that she was just naturally skinny and that she didn't have any issues, but I saw how she ate. I saw how she lived. I'm not sure whether she was anorexic, I'm not sure whether she qualified, but she was certainly on her way. It worried me, but only slightly. Annabeth wasn't that sort of person: to give in without a fight. I knew her, even if I didn't like it.

And she was eating, a little, anyway. She'd eat carrots or celery or rice cakes or plain yogurt with berries. She didn't look _that_ bad, if you watched her throughout the day. She danced a lot, and walked Mrs. O'Leary.

She was warming up to the dog, I think.

As I was saying, Annabeth danced: a lot. She thought I wasn't paying attention, probably, but she practiced her stick-thin legs off every day. Those little turney-pointy thingies, and those things where you had to get your leg up high. Moment...word from the dancer…she seems to be quite upset that I've butchered the ballet language that much…ah.

Fouettes and arabesques, she calls them. She did them all the time, and those jumpy things, too. Er…grande jetes and tour jetes, my apologies.

My point being: she danced near all the time, and when she wasn't dancing at home, she was at the studio with Zoë, dancing there.

But she didn't seem to be ready for the show, which, by now, was only a day away. Tomorrow night, Christmas Eve, the _Nutcracker_ would be opening.

And now onto things that are jolly, with mistletoe and holly, and other things ending in "olly". *

Since Christmas Eve was so close, we had our stockings up, and our Christmas tree had presents beneath it.

I'd gotten Annabeth a lump of coal.

Kidding, of course.

That would have been a folly. See what I did there? Folly is a word ending in "olly"… Never mind.

Speaking of mistletoe, Annabeth was still mad at me over that certain event. I'm quite disappointed with her; she'd taken it a bit too personally. Then again, I _had_ done it just to make her mad.

So, mission accomplished. Only problem being, it didn't serve her to be cross with me during the holidays.

Annabeth was sincerely driving me nuts, with the anger thing and the eating thing and the dancing thing. She was just generally very infuriating, I think. I may have mentioned it before, but it's definitely the center of these few days.

Near everyone I knew was going to see the _Nutcracker_. I had invited the Boys. Jason was already going, because of Hylla and Reyna, and I thought Leo could use some real dancing tips. My parents were going, of course, and I think, by some odd coincidence, Auntie Gottschalk was going to make an appearance *cough cough ANNABETH cough*. Unfortunately, Mrs. O'Leary wasn't allowed in, but the man that gave her to us, Quintus, he was coming. I think someone bribed him.

Same with our Latin teacher, Mr. Moods, and our Civics teacher, Mrs. Mills. They didn't seem the type to come to a ballet. Maybe they were friends of Zoë or Phoebe's parents or something? Maybe Annabeth had bribed them? I don't know, but something was wrong. As Mr. Moods would say, "Something in the stars isn't lining up quite right."

Perhaps he's not as crazy as we all thought.

Of course, Latin teachers are a rare breed.

Speaking of rare, something happened the other day involving me, Annabeth, or the lack thereof, and my iPod, that's never happened to me before: a song reminded me of a person. More importantly, a song that I never listen to reminded me of a person I don't like.

One of my gifts from Auntie Gottschalk, once, was a full Ed Sheeran album on my iPod. I'm not quite sure why, or what possessed her at that moment, but nowadays I've got one Ed Sheeran album on my iPod, thanks to her. This rare one album includes the song _The A Team_.

For whatever "starry reason", I didn't skip the song, and I found myself thinking of Annabeth during it.

The song's about drugs, so it took me aback, just a bit, that I was thinking of Annabeth. Sure, she may have slowly been killing herself, to which I don't really pay much concern, but I'm near certain she's not on drugs.

That, in itself, made me want to brutally murder Auntie Gottschalk: her taste in music. Or the lack of taste in her taste of music, more specifically.

I wonder, sometimes, if the world is out to get me.

Oh, and that's Annabeth there, saying that the world isn't out to get me, just the people in it.

Har-dee-har-har, Miss Smart-Arse.

Ow.

Well, I think I had better sign off before Annabeth hurts me any farther than she already has. I swear, I don't know why I sign up for this stuff.

*This quote is © Terry Pratchett. Hogfather, Susan, specifically. I just thought it fit.

**Tah-Dah! We're getting close to the Big Reveal! **

**Leave me a review: What happened on **_**your**_** Apocalyptic day? I'll tell you right now: I sent a Happy Birthday message to the wrong number, and it ended up being a guy that I actually know, and he asked me out. That, in itself, was pretty apocalyptic. **

**I mean, come on now: really?**

**I had to bury a dead bird, too.**

**Hey: check out my other story, Ask the Olympians! I'm almost up to the ten-question mark just need one more, and then I'll be answering all of them. If you have a question for any of the deity Percy Jackson characters, or Chiron, or any other personification or magical being, please review **_**that**_** story. Thanks everyone, love you.**

**::Binna::**


	18. The True Meaning of Christmas

**Chapter Eighteen**

**Quick challenge: what's the longest word you can think of off of the top of your head? Review and tell, because I'm curious. **** This is my Christmas present to all who read, albeit early, though please, do tell me what else you got for Christmas! :P **

Christmas Eve had never come so soon, I think. The days normally dragged: on and on and on, waiting for Christmas, and Christmas Eve was the worst bit of it all. It went past so slowly that people should be able to skip Christmas Eve altogether and just go straight to the holiday. But, I suppose that there's an eve for everything, if you must have a day.

Unfair.

I was starting to regret doing the ballet. More like, I was starting to regret coming to New York. It was noisy and uncoordinated, but that's beside the point. The ballet was stressing me out, completely. I knew that I could never pull of Sugar Plum Fairy. But I had the same doubts with Odette/Odile, and I did that just fine. We hadn't had enough time to practice, I think. I know a half-year seems like a lot, but when you're put under the pressure of having to preform when it's done, especially a dance, it goes by like nobody's business.

So, the date really is the 24th. Christmas Eve, at the end of which I would be dancing Sugar Plum Fairy in front of about a thousand people.

I hadn't weighed myself yet. I think I was trying to put off the bad news. But I couldn't avoid it for much longer; it was already two in the afternoon. I hadn't eaten lunch, and the Jacksons hadn't paid attention, because they were all away: Paul was somewhere doing some work, grading exams I believe, and Percy and his Mom had gone Christmas shopping, despite the plentiful presents under the tree. I think they wanted an excuse to get away from me.

I creaked the bathroom door open and opened the cabinet where the scale was located. I had become friends with that cabinet, in the past months. I had learned its secrets: it yielded when I wanted it to. Right now, I needed it to.

The scale, however, was not my friend. I think the scale and Ana together were plotting against me, trying to destroy me. Why couldn't I stop listening to either of them? I wondered this aloud as I stepped on.

79.6, the scale read. My eyes began to water. Yes, I had reached my goal weight for these months, yes, I had lost nearly 14 and ½ pounds since the last time I had weighed myself. Yes, this was incredible, as I look at it now. Yes, I was cosmetically ready to be under the spotlight.

But I had given up a long time ago. I had given up trying. It was going nowhere, I thought, and there was no point. I gave up on attempts at being healthy, being happy, because it wasn't working. I gave up on everything, set my goal weight on zero, and hopped along for the ride. As far as I was concerned, 79.6 was 79.6 pounds too many.

I fell against the wall, in routine, and found my razor blade in its secret hiding place: a little alcove somewhere along the wall, no bigger than the size of three quarters put together, lengthwise, and about an inch tall.

I looked at my thighs. The only thing visible was a bunch of scratches, but it needed to stay that way. I would have a problem with my tights if they were visible: stage lights show things nobody needs to see.

I looked at my wrists. Tempting, but also not an option. Too new. I wouldn't be able to cover them. So I sat, with my razor in my fingers, ice cold against my skin, and cried myself out. But it would never be enough. I needed something to make me forget. Something to take away the pain.

There was nothing. Normally, I would worry about consequences later. But today, I had no choice. I heard the car pull up in the driveway. Mrs. Jackson and Percy, probably. I dried my tears, though I was still crying inside, and slid my razor into its alcove. I put the scale back into the cabinet, and put on a smiling face. I was good at that. Acting.

"Hello, Annabeth," Mrs. Jackson called from the floor below. "I see you did the dishes, that was very kind."

"No problem," I called back.

The rest of the day went by in a bit of a blur. We went to the studio at four; the _Nutcracker_ would open at nine. There was still barre warming up to be done, gossip to be swapped, and costumes to be adjusted. I took mine to Calypso.

She dusted the pointe shoes with a fine golden powder, the sort that shimmers but doesn't show any proof of existing, and gave me a dancer's blessing.

"Merdé," she whispered as she handed me the shoes. I nodded at her.

Percy had followed me halfway into the practice room, when, and I swear, this made my day, Madame came out with a stick and threatened to hit him with it.

"Youuu ees no annoy my dancers! Go away!" She waggled it in the same way an old lady or old man would his cane. I hid my laughter behind my hand.

Zoë looked great in her Snow Queen costume. Her pointe shoes, which I hadn't seen before, were coated in the same glitter as mine, except white.

"Merdé," she whispered.

"Merdé," I whispered back.

My heart pounded as I stretched at barre. I took slow and steady breaths, trying to calm myself down. The noise of outside the curtain certainly wasn't helping. I popped the earbuds with the _Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy_ in, still breathing carefully. I went through the choreography in my head, remembering every bit of Madame's unorthodox choreography, from the big _grande jete _in to the final _port de bras_, reviewing everything from the starting positions of the jetes and fouettes to the position of my pinkie in _port de bras_.

Madame went out and introduced the performance, and then it went underway.

Finally, it was "go time". With a grande jete, I made my appearance on the stage.

The theater was silent except for the music. Muscle memory came into play as I danced, and danced, and danced. As I struck the final port de bras, smiling, finally done, I felt my muscles go weak. The last thing I remember before everything went black was one perfect second: a marvellous dance with no flaws whatsoever, a perfectly fitting costume with lots of shine, and it was just like Odette and Odile: a combination of light and dark that fit together seamlessly: the past few months along with the inevitable joy and pleasure of the dance. It was this that made the hardships worth it.

Of course, what goes up must come down. After that one perfect second, the world went completely black as it rose up around me.

**Hah-hah! Pulled a cliffhanger on you there, didn't I? LOL. .D **** one eyed smiley! .P**

**I hope everyone had a great Hogswatch (Er…Christmas, for all of you non-Discworlders) and a happy New Year. Tell me what you got for Christmas! :P**

∞**Binna**


	19. How 'Bout 'em Mets, Dear?

**Chapter Nineteen**

**How are you guys doing? Anxious, much? XD**

**Also, new update that I forgot about before: the longest word I know: Lopadotemachoselachogaleokra nioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatos ilphioparamelitokarakechymen okichlepikossyphophattoperis teralektryonoptekephalliokig klopel-eiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganop terygon. It is a coined word in the play Assemblywomen, and yes, I have committed it to heart. What a dork I am, right? I'm a word geek.**

I had spent the past four hours in a dreary hospital room, with a half-dead girl and a few machines hooked up to drugs. What a life I led, right?

Annabeth had collapsed in the middle of the _Nutcracker_. It put the show to a pretty much standstill. The paramedics had to come in and everything. There was a distinct difference between fainting and collapsing, I thought. Fainting is done when something either horrible or impressive or unbelievable has occurred. Collapsing is done when your body just gives up on whatever you're trying to do, be it from malnutrition or overheating or other things.

I knew there was something up with her.

Annabeth looked a mess in this room. Her hair had lost most of its shimmer, and she was quite near as pale as the sheets. Her stage makeup was still on, and that reflected every bit of sunlight that her hair missed, and it looked out of place on her gaunt face. The hospital gown made her look even smaller.

Looking at her, I could honestly say that if my body was a guitar, a little string in my heart went "twang".*

The heart monitor read a steady pace, though I must admit, it was quite slow. It's not like…alright, I'm going to stop denying the fact that I cared about Annabeth. And not just because it would be "my" fault (it's like, well, excuse me, mea culpa, mea culpa, whatever) if she got hurt under our care. It's because I actually enjoyed her presence and would be quite sad if there was a lack of it.

When we had told the nurse what happened, she shook her head sadly. That was before shoving an IV up Annabeth's arm, but it was still sadly.

I took another look at Annabeth. Christmas Eve, it was. Spent in the hospital. The paramedics had found out that Annabeth weighs only a delicate 79.4 pounds.

I blamed myself.

I knew I cared about Annabeth. I denied it, because I didn't like it. It only happened to me when bad things were around the corner. But Annabeth was beautiful. She was much less than perfect, and that's what made her fun to be around.

I surrounded myself with these thoughts as I sat, for hours, in the hospital room. My parents were in the waiting room, but the nurse had allowed me in. The same nurse came in every thirty minutes to give Annabeth medicine and check her vitals. Eventually, I stopped paying attention.

It was near midnight when Annabeth finally opened her eyes.

"Percy?" she whispered. Her voice was hoarse.

"Right here," I replied. A faint smile tugged at her white lips.

"What happened to me, Percy?" said Annabeth softly, after a while.

"You collapsed. After you danced. In the middle of the _Nutcracker_."

Annabeth lifted a hand to her face, biting her lip.

"Now you're in the hospital, hooked up to several machines that are giving you nutrients, because you refused to eat."

She glared at me and opened her mouth to say something, probably something rather rude, but another visitor came in.

She was short and thin, with caramel-brown hair and blue eyes. She was holding a pair of gold-and-pink pointe shoes.

"Annabeth?"

Annabeth turned her head and sighed at the visitor. "Are you here to tell me how big a failure I am? How I could never pass for a dancer? How little my life matters as compared to the beauty and splendor of the stage? Because if you are, save your breath, believe me, I know." Her voice held a bitterness and remorse that I'd never heard in Annabeth before. I reached for her hand, but she tugged it out of my reach.

The visitor said nothing. She sat in the seat opposite me and studied the shoes.

"It's what happened to me too, you know. It ruined me, the dance," she whispered. "I wasted myself away, and the doctors told me never to dance again. That's why I do costumes. So I can still be close to the stage. I'm trapped, of a sort. There's a world of possibility. Of what should have been. I see it all the time: forgotten dreams, lost hopes…people like you."

"Is that why you're so bitter and disapproving all the time?" Annabeth snapped, or tried to. It's pretty hard to be angry with an IV hooked to your arm.

The visitor finally fixed her blue eyes on Annabeth's wiry frame, and smiled. "No. I'm just keeping my dance teacher's ways alive. I don't think anyone teaches dance like her anymore."

Annabeth snorted. "I'll bet the world is glad."

The visitor smiled. "I'm sure they are. Here are your shoes, Annabeth. I thought you might want them."

She handed Annabeth the pink-gold dance shoes. They were nice, I thought. If I were Annabeth, I would have been happy to wear them.

Annabeth took them lightly and held them to the light, her face slack and emotionless. She glanced at the visitor. "Thanks, Calypso."

Calypso smiled. "Doing my job. Merdé, ballerine," she added in French, and left the room. Annabeth sighed and leaned back against the white pillow.

"Everything's so depressing in hospital rooms," she said faintly. "It feels like death: all white light with nowhere to go."

"Never thought of it like that."

She turned her head to me. "Thank you, Percy," she whispered.

"Hey, no problem."

"Come here," she hand gestured for me to come closer.

I leaned a little bit more over her. She kissed me on the cheek. "Have a psychedelic day," she mumbled before drifting off to sleep again.

***another Pratchett quote. Susan, Soul Music. :P**

**Are you happy? XD**


	20. Torture, or Not So?

**Chapter Twenty**

**Thanks to everyone who sent me luck for surgery: it went great! Love you all‼ And a happy 1/5/13 birthday to that one Guest: you know who you are.**

The Jacksons were ridiculously silent on the way home. Not even that fake sort of idle chat: you know, about the weather and the Mets and sort.

I had officially been diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa and made appointments to come and see the eating clinic twice a week. It was like physical therapy, just less fun.

Hey, at least at physical therapy, you burned calories, not gained them.

I had a different sort of therapist for my depression, which I complained wasn't even that bad, but the nurse said something different when she saw my scars.

Bugger it. Whoever invented razors needs to be thrown onto the streets and shot.

And they had suspended my dancing until I was safely over 105 lbs.

Nearly thirty dreadful pounds. I hadn't been that heavy since I was still in California, I think.

I felt like crying.

Back to the car ride. I was shivering the entire way through. Oh, you know it: hospitals are _cold_. But by some unconventional series of completely odd and alternate-universe events, Percy wrapped his arm around me. The entire car ride.

Torture.

It's not like he smelled bad or anything, I just _seriously don't like him._ At _all_.

Even with me, gestures of caring don't quite go unappreciated. I muttered a low thanks after we got home. But the thing that Percy needed to understand was that, just because I had collapsed while dancing, mostly from lack of sleep, I think, and I'd been diagnosed with anorexia didn't mean that I was incapable of taking care of myself. It just meant that a slimy, snake-like voice coming from a lighter-than-air body paralyzed me when I tried. I wasn't mentally incapacitated, either. No brain damage at all. In fact, I think it was the thing that worked most with my anorexia.

I have a bit of an analysis OCD. I calculate everything, all the time. Walking through the school, I calculate how quickly the average person in the halls move, I calculate how often every three minutes people hold hands. My parents called me the human blender: I take in information, my gears whirl momentarily, and _boom_, you've got an answer.

I don't like emotions, either. I don't remember when I was last truly happy, other than the one perfect moment onstage.

Emotions can't be calculated, nor can they be denied their right in the world. So basically, you've got fires running around the world: calm and happy and sad and angry, omnipresent and ubiquitous. And there's no telling when they'll appear, when, what you'll be doing. They're basically people without the brain and gross sticky red things.

I think they like to bring memories with them. They like to pretend they have a reason to bring you the emotion. You'll see something, and the emotion will come with a random memory that is _somehow_, in _some way_, connected to your vision. It's times like these I wish I was blind.

If you're a Douglas Adams fan, I can tell you right now: they're _just_ like Dirk Gently. It's all holistic. But I highly don't recommend having tea-time with your soul; people might take you as mental. It's happened to me before: my inner Zen was severely voodoo-d.

Anyway, when we had got home, I still wasn't free of Percy's curse. He followed me up the stairs. Once we got to my room, it was me standing in the room, and Percy outside of the doorway. We stared at each other for a moment, and then I slammed the door in his face. Well, maybe I can flatten his nose out a wee bit and he won't look so much like a fish.

After I had finally relaxed, lying on the bed, I heard three soft knocks on my door. When I didn't answer, they got louder. After a while, I just got tired of the knocking, because it was making me uncomfortable, so I got up and answered the door.

It was Percy, and he was leaning against the doorframe with a sprig of mistletoe, held up over our heads.

"My turn," he said cheerfully, and kissed me. He still kissed me on the cheek, but it was getting quite a bit closer to my lips. When he pulled away, I shoved him, laughing.

"What did you do that for?"

He looked like he wanted to give an actual response, but he just joked, "It's our game, isn't it?"

I shook my head. "You."  
"Come on, it's Christmas. We're opening presents." He took me downstairs, where Paul and Mrs. Jackson were waiting. Someone had already strategically piled presents in order to whom they belonged and whom they were from. We all sat on the floor.

"The age-old dilemma: who will open their presents first?" Mrs. Jackson asked.

"I volunteer Annabeth," said Percy at the same time as I said, "I'll go last." We shot each other a glare.

"Okay, Annabeth last. I think Percy should go first," said Paul.

"No, I think you should go first, followed by Mrs. Jackson, and then Percy, and then me."

Paul shrugged. "Alright, it works."

Paul got a planning notebook (from me. I had to, he's so disorganized), a framed picture of his face the first time he saw Mrs. O'Leary from Percy, and a set of books from Mrs. Jackson.

Mrs. Jackson got a "Best Mom" mug from Percy, a blender from Paul, and an Amazon card from me, so she could get books and games and all that good stuff.

Percy got a _Sorry! _game and an Android from both Paul and Mrs. Jackson. He was opening my gift when I started laughing. I had gotten him a _Family Resemblance?_ portrait of him and a fish. When he saw it, his mouth dropped.

"Are you kidding me?" he screeched.

"Wow, Percy, I didn't know you could sing soprano," I laughed.

"You know," he said thoughtfully. "I sort of _can _see the resemblance…"

The room burst into laughter.

And then it was my turn. I got, from Mrs. Jackson, _War and Peach._ From Paul, an "I 3 COFFEE" coffee mug. And from Percy, a lump of coal.

"The real one's upstairs," he explained after I finally stopped laughing.

When he returned, he was holding a small, square box with a bow on the top. I lifted the lid carefully.

Inside was possibly the most beautiful owl necklace I had ever seen. It was made of diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds. Er, hopefully just diamond-like, sapphire-like, and emerald-like gems. But underneath it was a certificate of authenticity.

"Oh my god. Percy, I…I can't take this."

"Don't worry about it," he said, hooking it around my neck. "Paul's best friend is a jewler."

They all started laughing, but I just sat there, sort of empty inside, not really seeing anything at all, and touched the spot right under my clavicle, where the necklace sat.

"Hey," Percy whispered, "you alright?"

I nodded airily and hugged him.

"Family…DISMISSED!" thundered Paul. "Er. Until lunch, that is."

A few minutes after I walked into my room and shut the door, someone, very tentatively, opened it.

"Annabeth?" Percy's voice whispered.

"Yes?" I whispered back, getting up.

I think he had the impression that I was still on the bed, and I had the impression that he was still in the door, so we almost ran into each other. For a moment, we just stared. Nobody said anything.

But then I blinked, and Percy kissed me, on the lips this time. And as I wrapped my arms around his neck, I decided that emotions, the little bastards, had been deceiving me all this time: I really did like him. And finally, I knew that I was happy again.

**If you haven't read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency or the Long Lost Tea-Time of the Soul, I apologize for that one confusing paragraph, but Don't Panic! Lol. Another Douglas Adams joke there. Sorry, but I was on a roll.**


	21. Irrationality and Second Thoughts

**Chapter Twenty-One**

**I understand that I've upset some people with the ending of my last chapter, including myself and some of my most loyal readers. For this, I must continue.**

Annabeth and I weren't really that close at all, I noticed. There was something not quite right. And it was her that had me up at four in the morning, her pacing in the kitchen. I'd gotten accustomed to Annabeth, the sound of her light footsteps and the patterns they made, so I made no reach for my baseball bat anymore when I heard her pacing or dancing or something of the like. All too often, it didn't even wake me up. But the urgency of the pacing woke me up just fine.

Down in the kitchen, by one dim candle, Annabeth was walking back and forth and back and forth around the island, and so on. She was mumbling, too, something like…

"-don't know what's wrong with me, no, things like this never happen, not to me, I've normally got more logic than that, I do, and I don't know what got into me, maybe it was the medicine they gave me at the hospital. Yes, that must be it, I can't properly react with a bunch of morphine in my system, now can I? No, I don't think I can, and-"

"Annabeth?"

Her entire body whipped around. "What? Who's there?"

"It's just me. Why are you pacing and mumbling and going about, Annabeth, you'll wake the neighborhood," I joked. Even in New York, the city that never sleeps, there was a difference between the street noise and the lack of noise that was made when someone was quite clearly uncomfortable with themself. The uncomfortable noise was actually a lot louder, because it wasn't really there.

"Oh, no reason, not really, I just feel a bit untidy, with my collapsing and all, it's been bugging me a bit, I don't see what's wrong, I really don't, and-"

"It was about yesterday, wasn't it?"

Annabeth began to pace again, not answering.

"Annabeth?"

"I was a bit rash was all, and now it's not letting me sleep. Not like I'd ever gotten much in the first place, anyway, but still."

"I'd agree, I think."

She sighed, probably somewhat relieved. "It's just that I'm never at ease with myself, Percy, and how can I be at ease with anybody else?"

"I don't understand, though, Annabeth, why you put yourself through such torture."

She turned and faced me, holding my eyes uncomfortably for a while before speaking in a soft whisper. "You wouldn't understand, not unless you've had the illness. It takes you away, it does, becomes your voice of reason. I haven't been myself recently, if you'd count yesterday, but I never really was myself around here, not since a few summers ago when the voices started talking to me." She let go of my gaze and began to pace again. "It was sudden, really, and you'd never know what hit you until the hunger came and took your painful being to a sudden standstill. You can't eat anymore, not without feeling so bad you want to puke. It's the guilt that ruined me, I think, such a guilty conscience I have. It's so easy to get lost in it, too, so easy to find yourself floating in a dreary existence, bland, with no colour but that brought by the voice of Anorexia. Ana, I've called her; she seems to need a name. She's no friend of mine, but she's been there for me more than any of my friends have. You're sinking, it's like, in your own skin, and you can't stop until you're gone. I don't know why some dancers say anorexia is hell, starving is the best feeling in the world to me. Your stomach doesn't really grumble anymore, it just aches, and it feels like accomplishment. I love it."

I shook my head. She was a crazy girl, and I told her so.

"Crazy, I may be," she whispered. "And the voices in my head may not be real, but they certainly have some wonderful ideas. My voice of rationality is broken, Percy, broken, possibly beyond repair. No, I don't think I'm crazy. Perhaps mentally ill is the better term, because I don't think crazy really works for me. My voices are broken, yours intensified, and I've been driven ill listening to them. Sometimes I just crack, just a little bit, and wish for myself back. Just to eat again, just to be able to love someone without feeling bad for them." She sat on a stool near the island, the candle still flickering uneasily with some nonexistent breeze in the middle. "Go to sleep, Percy. I could use without your company right now, thanks."

"Good morning, Annabeth."

She smiled. "Good morning."

I went back to bed with a better understanding of Annabeth (and her various voice accomplices), even if just by a bit. Standing in someone else's shoes, I think, doesn't exactly work for everything. To understand anorexia, and why it happened to her, Annabeth had to shove her shoes on my feet and make my legs move herself. It may not have been convenient, but it certainly worked, and the candlelight flickered in my head, playing off her pale skin. I didn't like Annabeth in that way, I thought. I was more scared of losing her. After all, her collapsing did scare me half to death.

Rash, no, but uncalled for, yes, and maybe I was clouded too, my voice of reason sort of…warped. Not snapped or broken or even cracked, because it worked just fine today, but warped in a sense, because Annabeth was my friend, and I didn't want her to leave this world so soon.

**Yes, if you'd noticed, Savannah/Link is a Beautiful Creatures reference. I was going to do Ridley and Link, but thought better of it. **

**What did you all think? Did you catch how watching the play and movie Sweeney Todd over and over and over again has mangled my English? I've started calling everyone "dear" and "love" and "pet". It's freaking people out.**

**This chapter was more my speed, I think, on a Percabeth level. :P **


	22. Helping and Hurting

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

If I wasn't supposed to dance, I didn't know what the heck I'd do with my life.

I mean, I'd always had a backup career of being an architect: I love the idea of being able to create something, something permanent, something that would stand the test of time and become beautiful and rare as it became old. I'd always wanted to build something that would inspire other people, that would shape cultures for the better. I've always loved the fact that, with a few simple details here and there, you can make any old building look like a gothic Cathedral or the magnificent structures of ancient Greece and Rome. I've always felt the longing to make my mark on the world: to make a structure that stands alone, quality over quantity, something that would be the basis of hope.

But there was something missing in that dream, something that had me incomplete. The dance was what I loved, I knew, it was beautiful and graceful and elegant, and only the most elite would make it, and there was a factor to it: I'm not sure what, perhaps the stage lights, the silent crowd, the music, the costumes: one of a billion things that made dance so special to me.

Though it took its toll on my life: it made me broken inside, over in every way but the delicate movements of a ballerina, it was magnificent and perfect, and it gave other people joy.

Dance and architecture, to me, are one in the same that way. They are magnificent and perfect, and they bring other people joy.

But only one of them made me cry with delight and sadness and anger all at the same time, and turned me inside out in only a way something you truly loved could do.

I danced, and that was that. I'd always been a dancer: those guaranteed lessons every girl has when they're three made me fall in love with them. The dancers leaping in Pointes Three, the fouettes and pas de chats and everything that made a ballerina a ballerina. I wanted to be like them.

It was only a little while later that I found dancing came with a price: you had to be skinny. You had to be skinny, and you had to work hard.

I never thought I'd grow tired of the dance, I never did, and I never will. But some things are too repetitious. When I began losing an interest in life, I began losing an interest in dance. And moving to New York did nothing to help the matter.

I'd forced myself skinnier and skinnier, hoping maybe I would see myself as one of the beautiful ballerinas I'd seen when I was small, and determined to be like them.

It never happened.

Then there was the matter of the Jacksons. Sally was a wonderful woman, and Paul was hysterical. I wonder what happened to Percy.

He wasn't bad, really, I quite liked him. He was kind to me, just in his own deceitful ways. Now I see that. But back then, when everything hurt, his smart little comments drove me to near insanity. Sometimes people just don't understand that things really hurt. If they don't mean it, they still really _really_ hurt.

Now I saw, for the first time. I felt the breeze across my face as I walked through the Jackson's yard. It was hard to find a yard in New York city, but they had managed a small space for Mrs. O'Leary.

I was growing quite fond of the dog. She was a sweet, harmless little thing, though massive as always.

"Annabeth? Lunchtime." Percy poked his head out the back door.

It had been a month since I'd been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. The progress was slow. Sometimes it got worse. And the cutting had stopped, thank God. I think that was the worst bit.

My mental sanity was getting steadily back to its normal condition. By normal, I mean certifiably insane in _only_ seven states and a couple US territories, as opposed to all of them.

_I dreamed a dream in time gone by_, I thought to myself, and skipped a few lyrics to my favourite part. _I dreamed that love would never die…_

"Annabeth!"

His voice snapped me out of my Les Mis reverie. "Coming," I called.

Sometimes some things just had to be that way for a reason. I'd been dancing pretty much illegally for the past few weeks, because I couldn't do without it. It had turned me into a monster, but it was what kept me here, and I couldn't do without it. So I'd put on my pointe shoes and started dancing again, aware that my figure was getting progressively fatter.

I wasn't sure that I liked it. I had gained almost four pounds back by now.

Recovery is such a hard thing. I'm certain nobody that hasn't been through it couldn't possibly understand it: the pain, the longing. Sometimes I wondered if it would be easier to go back home. I'd be doing that before the summer months. Going back to California.

I don't think California's ever missed me, really. I've been more miserable in New York.

Take that, California.

Haha.

Sometimes I think I need mental help.

"What's for lunch?" I pirouetted slowly over to the table, finishing in fifth position.

"Just a salad," replied Paul. "I didn't have time to make anything heartier."

I shrugged. Fine with me, as long as nobody force-fed me salad dressing through my ears. Knowing Percy, he would be the one to make that happen.

I wasn't expected to eat much for a while, but they made sure I ate quote-end quote "enough". I kept it to a minimal, but enough was enough to make me gain four pounds back.

Percy stole a carrot from my bowl. I punched his shoulder lightly.

We never talked much as we ate. Some New York thing, I bet: they're supposedly too "busy" to talk through a meal, and what they did they did with their mouths full of food.

I would never get used to New York. It was just one of those places that, if you hadn't been their your entire life, you'd never get accustomed to quite perfectly.

**WE GOT SNOW! I can hardly believe it! But I'm on crutches so sucks for me. But whatever, we got snow and we got off school, so I have plenty of time to write this and my Susan x Teatime fic, You Make Me Happy. I also **_**finally**_** have 10 reviews for Ask the Olympians, which means I'll be updating that, so please leave a review there, and thanks so much for reading! I love you guys!**


	23. Glitterbombs

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

Annabeth was in the kitchen again, pacing. I hated it when she paced, though she made near no noise. Likely the reason that she was pacing was because we were heading to the eating clinic again today. It wasn't really that big a deal; Annabeth had been a good little anorexic and gained a couple pounds. All they wanted to see was that she was at _least_ maintaining her weight, not losing any more. She wouldn't be allowed to go back to California until she had gotten safely over 105 lbs., and she _had_ made it clear that moving back to California was what she wanted to do.

Her room had become her little safe-haven. I didn't know what she did in there, but it kept her calm. Calm was good, considering we had an ADHD, dyslexic anorexic on our hands. Yes, yes, calm was good.

"Alright," Sally said lightly. "Are we all ready?" I nodded. Paul nodded. Annabeth continued pacing.

"Out, out, out," said Paul cheerily. His deal was that if Annabeth had gained five pounds overall, he would take us all out for ice cream.

In the middle of the winter.

Annabeth probably didn't want the ice cream, but she was doing _me_ a huge favour.

We loaded the Prius. Annabeth stared straight ahead, chewing her sugar-free gum. For a moment I watched her jaw pulse, and I realized that she wasn't even chewing any gum. She was likely chewing the insides of her cheeks, out of nervous tension.

We rode in the car in silence. Of course, it was the loud sort of silence, the kind where the members of the silence all have something to say, but they just refuse to say it.

When we got to the clinic, we were departed from Annabeth almost immediately. We were sent to the waiting center, Annabeth elsewhere.

Annabeth shot me a glance before she left. As she turned around, I caught her fingers crossed behind her back.

I shook my head, smiling. _Annabeth, Annabeth_.

The waiting room of the clinic was a decent size. There were only a few people in it: a girl with stringy, sparse brown hair only a little bit larger in size than Annabeth, a boy about the same size, and one man who seriously looked like he needed to lay off the cookies. It was like Supersize v. Super-skinny, except in New York. They stared at us with their beady eyes, likely wondering what we were here for.

The seats were comfortable. There was a coffee maker to our right side, and the view out the window described New York perfectly: busy streets, taxi cabs, tall buildings, tons of pedestrians with briefcases catching a quick bit to eat near the food trucks.

There were no magazines in the clinic, likely to prevent people with eating disorders from feeling discouraged and hopeless when they saw the models in the pages. So it was a long hour. Sometime during it, the man and the boy disappeared into their own impending horror. The girl was left, staring into space in much the same way Annabeth did, emptily focusing on nothing.

When the hour was up, Annabeth came back into the waiting room. From the way her eyes were lit, I took that there was good news. From the way her shoulders were slumped, though, I also took that she was slightly disappointed.

"I gained five and a half pounds," Annabeth said breathily. Then the twinkle in her eye became more dominant and she said, "But they've released me to dance again!" She beamed. "Only simple pointework and no auditioning for anything, but they said I could go back!"

There was a time when I would have denied caring. Just sat back and stared at her hysterical happy tears. But I couldn't help but be cheerful with her. I mean, this was the happiest I'd ever seen her, and it meant that I could cancel the order of thirty pounds of various sparkles I had ordered to glitterbomb her with.

We all clapped for her. My mom even got up and hugged her.

The girl with the brown hair looked at us all as we laughed. Annabeth's gaze locked with hers for a moment, and they simply looked at each other. Then the brown haired girl looked away to take a sip of her dark coffee.

As we left, I heard Annabeth whisper to the girl, "Good luck."

We went for ice cream. As I suspected, Annabeth didn't want any, though she did order a large sugar-free cinnamon tea.

Annabeth wanted to go back to dance as soon as possible, though they had released her to go back in a week. That would be next Saturday. But when we got home, Annabeth pirouetted on demi-pointe around me, giggling.

"Easy, Sparky," I muttered at her.

She just laughed and spun up the stairs like the Tasmanian devil. I shook my head and went online to cancel my glitter order.

My mom walked into the room as I was finding the order.

"Er, Percy?"

"Mmm?"

"What are all the sparkles for?"

"Glitterbombs."

There was no comment from Sally, but she didn't go anywhere. I could almost _feel_ her eyebrows rising by the second. Ah, there it was. Cancel order.

"It's a long, long story."

"I have time."

So I told her the entire story. How I knew something was going on with Annabeth, because she was never happy, and my plan to force-feed her sparkles.

Then I went through the details of the bombs and how I would make them detonate at the most hilarious of times.

I wound out with, "-so I figured if Annabeth was miserable after finding out how much weight she had gained, I would put the glitterbomb plan into action. But she's fine, so my thirty pounds of glitter are on their way back to the factory."

Sally got this sort of odd smile on her face, like an I-knew-it-all-along sort of smile. Like the Cheshire cat trying to act sullen.

"What?"

She wobbled her head like a bobble-head. "You like her."

"I do not."


	24. Frozen in Time

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

Where did you go? _whispered one._ Why did you leave me? _chimed another._

Home, _I replied calmly, sadly. The January evening was cool and dry. There was no sign of life other than myself and the voices in my head. I don't remember how I got to the garden, but I was there. I didn't even know that there _was_ a garden, but it was predominant around me: curly vines, twisting gracefully, illuminated by the silver moonlight. Metallic-tinted violets sprang at my feet when I walked. Trees grew delicately around, forming a clearing in the middle, but their branches entwined to make a sort of dome at the top. It was quieter than death. No noises of the night greeted me. It wasn't silence so much as anti-sound. That was the type of silence that picked sound up and threw it out the window. If you spoke, you wouldn't hear it anywhere but your own mind. Even through that, there was an echo to my thoughts. An echo to the voices. _

_ They were beautiful voices, silvery as the moonlight that surrounded me, as gentle as the sylvan ornamentation. They didn't speak harshly or ever suggest that they would. _

_ But it might have been better if they had._

_ The voices in my head, I was familiar with them. They introduced themselves, then they tortured you._

_ If you knew about them, you'd start to notice the little details of the place: the way the stone bench had little skulls carved into it, the fact that the flowers' vines were more than dark green: some of them were pure black, some albino white. Clusters of the flowers grew like parasites. Certain ones were sickly yellow, others red and dripping like blood. Some were drained of all colour, gray and bleak and tired, tired of growing and pretending. The trees reached out towards you, desperately longing to grab you in their clutches and never let you go. The moonlight was alive, swirling in all the wrong places, forming constellations all its own. There were no shadows._

_ It was something out of a Tim Burton movie, gone wrong. _

_ More wrong, anyway, and that was pretty hard to do. _

Come back! _murmured another. The rest of them chorused, insistent words getting louder until their voices were screeching. The lot of them sounded like nails on a chalkboard._

_ I sat on the bench with the skulls on it. Dark purple vines began to climb their way up my leg. I sat, idly, and watched them. They twirled lightly around my skinny calves. _

_ It was then that I noticed the background music. _

_ I was so tired of the place that I'd stopped gaping at the tendrils growing on their own accord, parasites of a beautiful world. But I'd never heard the music._

_ It was Coldplay's _Viva la Vida_, but there was something wrong with the chords. Instead of bright and rhythmic, they were dark and deep, hating and soulful. The vocals were shrieked out through what sounded like the vocal box of a crow. It grew from a whisper to a screaming cacophony. The voices filled my head with terrible images as the crow croaked to the heavy non-concord. The anti-sound would have been better than this._

_ I gritted my teeth. They'd always find new ways to torture you. I hadn't visited this place in months, and in those months they had gotten better. They read you like a book, they voices did._

This place,_ whispered one of the higher voices. _It gets into your head, doesn't it? It finds out how to…_deal_ with you. It's so much fun. *

_It was all I could do to keep from showing an outward sign that I was hating this torture. But it would do me no use, only preserve some of my pride. Because the voices, they weren't separate, they were inside of me. I was the one creating them. _

_ But they had gotten out of hand, they had taken and modified themselves, to the point where I didn't even know who they were anymore. They kept me in this garden, this hell, to keep me in line. Then they took me over, they used my body as a shell for their own thoughts and feelings. I was still there, but they were, too. _

_ I had maintained my health on the inside for a while, but they were slowly driving me mad. Depressed. Tired. _

_ It wasn't that I was possessed, exactly. No, not possessed, definitely not._

_ It was worse. I was a prisoner to my own thoughts._

_ The torture would get worse. I would deal with it. _

_ But for now, I bit my lip in pain, the horrible voices whispering, echoing themselves, torturing me with their ever-present persistence._

_ Finally, I screamed, breaking the anti-sound with something that sounded much like what the Big Bang sounded like: like a big swoosh, followed by the shrieks of millennia future. _

My eyes shot open, heart pounding. My eyes were watering, my breath coming in shallow, rapid gasps. They always found a new way to put me in my proper place. They always prevailed. I always lost.

No. I always won.

But I lost at the same time.

The worst part was that, that exactly. It was me, me who was torturing myself, me who was slowly killing any chance I had of a normal life, a life without the anorexia, without the insomnia, without the anxiety. Without the sadness.

I lay awake until morning came, the sweet shreds of dawn creeping over the twilight form of our earth like a savior angel over a battlefield, basking in my own terror and listening to the pound of my heart in my ears.

*Terry Pratchett

**Sorry this is late, and sorry it's short, but personally, this was my favourite chapter to write out of all of them so far. My sincere apologies to anyone who checked this update and was disappointed. There was an updating problem. Thank you for your patience, loves! :)**

**xoxo Binna**

**P.S. Have a lovely Valentine's Day!**


	25. Just Last the Year

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

The date was January 15th, 2013. The boys and I was at lunch. It was Annabeth's first day back to school since the _Nutcracker._ I hadn't seen much of her. Obviously, because I only have a couple of classes with her. But I'd expected to see her at lunch.

Apparently not.

Not like I was worried, I knew where she likely was. Either a) not eating in the library, which could be a problem, or b) not eating in the ballet studio, which could also be a problem. But my parents had asked me to account for her at every given second, not to make sure that she was eating.

That I would do in my free time.

News of her "unfortunate incident" had spread across the school like wildfire. Students and teachers alike always asked me if it was true, if Annabeth had been planning to kill herself, if she had been torturing herself, starving herself. Away from the many students and faculty members awaiting the truth was a tall girl, black hair and green eyes, thin and lanky, standing in a corner. She looked at me, looked through me. Then she pushed her glasses up and walked away.

Aside from her, I told them that Annabeth was tired.

When they asked of what, I answered, "I don't know."

And among those people were those wanting to know how much she had weighed at the time, those wanting to know if she had ever shown any outward sign of internal torture, those wanting to know if we could've done anything to prevent it.

I didn't answer them. She could deal with those herself.

Besides, all of it was starting to irritate me. So she collapsed of self-starvation. It's New York, there are anorexic girls all over the place.

But what really was pulling at the back of my head was when I read her diary last night.

Don't look at me like that. I'm not a pervert. Or a stalker, or a creeper, or anything else you may have the mind to call me. I was not spying. I was not intruding, not technically. It's not my fault that Annabeth left her marble composition notebook open on the island for all to see.

I admit, I wanted to know what was going on in her head. She never seemed to have enough emotion, never enough expression, to tell anyone what was going on.

I was a little bit curious.

So I read it. A little bit.

_14.2.1 – Monday_

_I had the dream again, the garden, the voices. Even now, the voices ring in my head. Whispering loudly, softly. I can't tell anymore. They've been there for too long._

_They're still skinny as ever, with long hair and dark eyes. The personifications. I like to think that the voices belong to them, though I'm not sure. It helps my mentality a little bit._

_Ah. Back to school tomorrow, it is for me. Should be interesting. Along with school, I'll be going back to ballet, though I'm not sure if I'll be going quite tomorrow or no. _

_Be fun, I'm sure, finding all the people I used to associate myself with all in one convenient location. _

_Zo__ё__. Phoebe. The rest of the dancers. Some in my Latin class. My teachers. _

_Percy's been oddly nice to me in the past few weeks. He even gave me a Christmas present, though I've mentioned it before. _

_I can't believe him sometimes. Sometimes he's just so rude, but others…he's almost too kind. Admittedly, I haven't been the kindest to him. In fact, I've been downright horrible. I'll have to ignore that for now. It's clear, though, that he's not that bad. _

_Oh, me… recovery. _

_Mrs. Jackson keeps asking me if I'd like a muffin. I say that I'm alright, that I don't need a muffin _(410, after all)_ right at that moment. Her muffins will be the end of me._

_Today I've had five almonds (35), a green pear (121), and two slices of toast (154). 311._

_There were times when I couldn't even do that much. _

_I log every bite I take for a reason. I log my weight for a reason (it's heightened). Because I long for the Annabeth of the past. Recovery is overrated. _

_I'm hungry. I need to eat._

_I hate eating._

_I need to eat._

_I hate eating._

_I need to eat._

_I __**love **__not eating__. _

_I'm not sick. I'm strong, and I'm tired of people trying to tell me otherwise. _

_It's cold. I'm always cold. Not that I wonder why. Of course, I don't have enough body fat to keep me warm. I've been cold since summer. _

_Not that I care. The less fat, the skinnier I am._

_Forget recovery. I don't want it. I only eat enough to keep myself off the radar, out of the "danger zone." But I've gained a lot of weight. A lot for me, anyway. 7 pounds. _

_I don't want it. I don't need it. Food is my enemy, and I'm tired of it winning._

_Sigh. They're too supportive. _

_AC_

Along with the journal entry had been a few sketches: some of eyes, some of buildings and architecture and math. But the most predominant one was a garden: a beautiful garden made of moonlight. The garden in Annabeth's nightmare? It couldn't be.

Was that a skull in the bench?

"_Percy?"_ The voice was watery, coming at me from far away. _"Perce?"  
_I jolted back to reality. The lunch table. The Boys.

Jason was waving his hand in front of my face. "Percy?"

"Hmm?"

Nico sighed, relieved. "We thought you'd gone Annabeth on us for a second. You alright?"

Echoing Annabeth. That was precisely what I was doing. As I spoke my next words, they collided with another voice, a different time, thin and strange and bound by the horrors of disease. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

**If you guys don't review, I'm done here.**

**Have a nice day. 3**


	26. Ana's Song

**Chapter Twenty-Six**

Another voice joined me as I spoke, deeper than mine and quite likely male. "I'm fine."

"You sure? Took quite a tumble there."

"I'm fine."

Over and over and over again. Fine, fine, fine, fine. Always fine.

I wasn't fine.

I was tired, stressed, failing at recovery. And I was most definitely _not fine_.

What they want to hear. Always say what they want to hear.

"Okay, Annabeth." Zoë had suggested a Sweeney Todd ballet for the summer season, which was just like her, and now she was listening to _Worst Pies in London_ and dancing to it.

"-price of meat, what it is, when you get it, never thought I'd live to see the day! Men'd think it was a treat, finding poor animals-"

The studio was welcoming: brightly lit and large, with the smell of Pine-Sol. Everything I'd ever loved about dancing. But the mirrors showed pictures that I really didn't want to see.

"-have to hand it to 'er, what I calls enterprise, poppin' pussies into pies! Wouldn't do in my shop! Just the thought of it's enough to make you sick! And I'm telling you, them pussycats is quick!"

Recovery was getting to my head. It was killing the voices.

I suppose that should be a good thing.

But they'd become me. That was the problem. They'd become me, and now they were dying.

"Ah, sir. Times is hard. Times is hard!"

Yes, times is hard.

"Zoë, we should get back to school." Zoë's eyes widened and she pulled a bud out of her ear.

"Right! School!" She laughed. "I'd almost forgotten about school!"

I smiled drily.

I wish that I could be like that again. Anorexia effects some people differently than others: some people have trouble remembering things. Me, I was one of the people that couldn't seem to forget things. Every bit of food I'd eaten in weeks was logged into my head, my entire schedule along with all the calories I'd burn doing daily activities.

I missed being able to forget. I missed being normal.

That's what recovery's for, right? I think so. But it's too late for me to recover. I'm in too deep. They're me, I'm them, they're here, but I'm not there. And every piece of food eaten starts a war inside my head.

One more bite couldn't hurt

**One bite less.**

One more bite

**One bite less.**

Just one more

**Just one less.**

** One less**

** One less**

** One less**

Just one

**Less.**

Whenever I'm not starving, I'm cutting, and whenever I'm not cutting, I'm starving.

Have I mentioned that? I don't think so; Percy's big mouth was using my time frame. I've started cutting again. It's getting worse and worse, too. Nothing like what I used to do, they're watching me under a microscope. But enough to get the anger and sadness and failures out. And I've had to get creative. One on my wrist, one on my thigh. One on my ankle, one my stomach. Because they check me, the therapists.

Tiredtiredtiredtiredtired

**Strongstrongstrongstrong.**

Tiredtiredtired

**Strongstrongstrong.**

Tiredtired

**Strong.**

Dancing helps me, but being around people doesn't. Therapy sessions are torture. I've always hated telling people what I'm thinking, because someday I'll say something wrong and land myself in an institution.

I don't like therapists. I've always been afraid of them. I mean, think about it. Therapist. The-rapist.

Childish, a little bit. But anyone with a license in psychology who's willing to work with someone like me must have either a) mental problems themselves; or b) a creepy pedophile profile.

I actually once got a text from my therapist in California. Normally, I just sent him texts. But this was odd.

I walked into K-Mart. Two minutes later:

Therapist says: I see you went to K-Mart.

Annabeth: O.O

Therapist says: I'm in the parking lot waiting for my dad.

I took the back door out that day. The next week, he shows up at my church.

Shiver.

The week after that, I switch therapists.

Oh, and the people at school. I hated most of them now. Always walking up to me and making fun of me and waving food in my face like I was some sort of caged animal at the zoo.

Madame didn't hesitate to be generous with her insults, either.

I wanted to go back home. I didn't care what the Jacksons said, what Percy wanted, I wanted to go back home. To California. It was my own personal little Hades down there, but it was where I belonged. I couldn't take the crowd of New York, the smells, the people. The people in New York alone could likely populate the entire world. It's too crowded, too claustrophobic.

I want home. To be at the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape. To be human again.

Hungryhungryhungry

**Strong.**

**Sorry the progress on this story is slow, sorry the chapters are short, sorry there's so little Percabeth. Just so you know, the way this story is working out in my head (as of the moment), it will **_**not**_** have a happy ending. I don't do happy endings, you all should know that about me by now. I won't spoil any further. This may be the last update for two weeks, not sure though. Just a fair warning, play's going on at my school, if I make it I'll be super busy from now on. **

**::Binna::**


	27. Burn Me

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

Take Percy, alone in the house. Take Annabeth's journal. Now flip the pages, some loose, some nonexistent, to today's date. This is where I sat. The journal read:

2/9/2013 8:09:26 PM

_They've done it again, at therapy. So repetitive, so concerning. The girl that forgot how to eat needs to r/e/c/o/v/e/r._

_ I think it's bull._

_ But in any case, they did it again. I touched the barrel this time, as the IV was connected, the slime inside of it. The water was gasoline, climbing up my fingers and sinking into my skin. They filled me with sugar water and watched me burn. Flames of repentance, flames of regret. Flames of r/e/c/o/v/e/r/y. Flames, burning blue fluid through my veins, saturated sugar water fueling the fire like oily satisfaction. Burning colder than they did hot, searing their way through my defenses, through my barriers, through the voices. _

_ I've grown to love those voices._

_ They symbolize the way I've grown inwards, shrunken almost, through the years. It took me for-e-ver. Forever to get this small. They eat slowly, the voices. They've taken too long to eat my insides. Now I was suffering. Honestly, nobody would've been able to take care of me if they'd eaten in one night. I'd drop forty pounds in the course of twelve hours. _

_ The flames left a stench. I smell of Christmas. _

_ Before this Hades happened, when I was the model of truth and rectitude, Christmas was where I consumed gingerbread, shoving calories carelessly down my throat. _

_ When that all changed, I ate only when I needed to, consuming no extra. No eggnog, no other liquid calories, no extra gravy. I ate barely enough to keep myself under the radar. The first ten pounds came off in a week._

_ Before the ghosts were pulled inside me, before the mark of fifteen, I still remembered how to want, how to eat, how to hold something in your arms and love it. _

_ Nowadays, the only thing I can ever forget _is_ how to eat. And occasionally how to sleep. _

_ I stay awake in the kitchen, bundled in blankets with a candle lit, my nervous pacing wakening New Yorkers miles down the road. When I go outside, I smell the greasy air, heady with the stench of fat and calories burning. They smell worse than hair burning. _

_ They look at me, the hidden ones. The ghosts of past perfects, of skinny loves, of never-achieved dreams. They want to be the voices. To be inside me. To aid me to join them, to free my soul. _

_ Every time, I invite them in. But they are scared. They don't want to die again. Because I smell of Christmas, and Christmas smells of calories. And calories smell of recovery._

_ r/e/c/o/v/e/r/y._

_ I am porcelain. _

AC

I closed the notebook. That was obviously it, for now.

She wasn't getting any better. She was getting worse. It goes to show you, I guess. She was gaining weight, but that didn't mean she was getting better. But it worried me. The girl who forgets to eat and sleep can't forget to live, too.

I considered turning the journal in to her therapist. Showing her how Annabeth _really_ felt. Letting them take her to a place with padded walls and straightjackets, where recover-ees were fed five times a day. Where notebooks were checked, scars were noted, and where mental sanity was always questioned. Where strength was measured in pounds, but not the negative ones.

Annabeth didn't deserve to be there. So I tore a piece of paper, small and light in my fingers, soaking through with my warm touch before I had held it for a second.

On it, in large writing that was quite obviously mine, I wrote:

_**Annabeth:**_

**You are beautiful, and perfect. And don't let anyone e**_**ver **_**tell you otherwise.**

** Percy**

** P.S.: You'd better believe me.**

**Sorry about the short chapter. I didn't have any ideas, not at all. Take the poll on my profile and tell me when you want me to end this story.**

**It's already longer than my novel, I'll tell you that much. **

**::Binna::**

**P.S. I got a large response to the therapist comment on the last chapter, thanks for that! Lol XD **


	28. Solla Sollew

**Chapter Twenty-Eight**

_**Annabeth:**_

**You are beautiful, and perfect. And don't let anyone **_**ever**_** tell you otherwise.**

**Percy**

**P.S.: You'd better believe me.**

I stared at the words. They reverberated hollowly through my head, sounding of his voice.

_He read my journal._

He thinks I'm beautiful.

_He read my journal._

He thinks I'm perfect.

_HE READ MY JOURNAL. _

He read my journal. I don't think that I'd ever be able to forgive him for that. Not only that he - thinks I'm beautiful - lied to me. It's one thing to read my journal and leave me a note, but it's a totally different thing to leave me a note that fills my head with lies, misconstrues my thoughts and seeps into me, poisonous and sticky and thick as tar.

I would get him for this.

I swept out of my room, light as air and thin as paper.

I had gained almost fifteen pounds before I decided that recovery was stupid.

"Percy!"

He turned his head in my direction.

_He has gorgeous eyes._

He read my journal.

_His eyes are-_

He read my journal.

_But his eyes-_

The same eyes that read my journal.

Man, you know that you've gone off your nut when you have multiple personalities that don't like each other.

"You read my journal."

"Yeah.

The entire confrontation was over with before I could even blink. I stood, awestruck. Honestly, I thought that he would at least try to deny it. Attempt at freeing himself from the obvious penalty of my anger. He didn't.

Then he hugged me. It wasn't anything like that time after Christmas. It wasn't laced with a fiery kiss. It wasn't trying to prove anything, trying to give me anything. It was just his way of telling me he cared.

And I finally felt warm.

Now, don't mistake my words. I didn't like Percy like that. I still don't. But it was nice to have a friend.

"Hey," he said defiantly. "At least I didn't turn you into the rapist."

"The rapist."

"I read that too."  
"Crap. I guess you know that I've gone nuts."

"Well…" he shrugged. "Sometimes people have to get things out. You won't get better if you don't vent."

"You're more than just kelp, aren't you?"

He tilted his head. I assumed he hadn't read the entry that I did, explaining my Fishface and Seaweed Brain theories.

"Never mind, forge it."  
"You know, just because I like the ocean-"

"I said forget it, okay!"

He laughed. "Okay." Silence for a minute. "Do you want to see something? Something beautiful?"

I thought about it. Was there anything I could think of as truly beautiful? "Sure." I'd find out, wouldn't I?

He took my hand and led me outside. "It's down the way a little bit, in a small area I'm not sure anyone really knows about. I mean, if they did it wouldn't exist, now would it?" He was speaking fast now, overly rapidly, trying to compensate for something.

Slowly, the dirt and silt turned into rock.

It was the place from my dreams, except alive. The bench was carved out of pure marble, the flowers and vines were blooming beautiful colours. I gasped.

There was no music, no voices. The bench was free of skulls, the flowers all bloomed colours that weren't dead. The vines were a vibrant green, and when you stepped on them, they didn't hook you. They didn't hook you, and they didn't care if you left.

Where you could find a place like this in Manhattan, I'm not sure. But Percy had done it.

"Like it? I thought you might, being such a nature-lover and everything. I came upon this place a few weeks before you came to New York. Check out the bench. It's Seussified."

_Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing's going to get better. It's not. –Dr. Seuss._

"I never knew what it meant until I met you."

Unless someone like him cares an awful lot…I looked down. "I'm sorry for failing."

"It's not a problem for me. I'm not the one dying. But I miss how it was in the beginning. How we both pretended to hate each other, not worrying about hurting the other."

"And now everything is so fragile," I responded. It was a definitive statement, I knew it for a fact that he was going to say it if I didn't. And it wouldn't feel right if he said it.

"Exactly. But you can't get better, can you? It's impossible?" He tilted his head as if he already knew the answer.

"I don't think I really want to."

"Right."

So we stood there for a few more minutes, enjoying the sheer natural beauty of a place in New York that only existed for us.

"You have to get better, Annabeth," he whispered. "Please?"

I couldn't meet his eyes. I couldn't even move, but I managed a small nod and shuffled my feet back home.

To his home, really. It'd never be mine.

I wanted to go home. Back to the place where nothing exists but me and the voices. Back to Solla Sollew, if I may. But for now, his home was the best I could do.

I promised to myself that I would never get better. Now I was promising something different to Percy.

For once in my life, I had absolutely _no_ idea of what to do. It didn't feel good. Not one bit.

**Short chapter, I know. Don't bother to comment on the length of it, I know, I know, I know. I write short chapters. Hey, at least it's longer than the previous one.**

**::Binna::**

_**P.S. comment if you've ever been in Seussical the Musical! :)**_


	29. Date with the Devil

**Twenty Nine**

It was a spring night in Manhattan. Annabeth probably hadn't eaten in two, three days, but nobody could make her. You know how I said that it didn't bother me, how she was dying? Last chapter? Yeah, I lied. She was probably the most amazing person I'd met in a long, long time, and she was killing herself. This afternoon, actually, we got a call from her ex-boyfriend. The conversation went something like this:

Mom: Hello?

Luke: Hi, is Annabeth there?

Mom: Uh…yes, please hold for a minute. *puts hand over receiver* Annabeth, it's for you.

Me: Who is it and how did they get our phone number?

Mom: It's some boy.

Me: *whistles* Well, well.

Annabeth: Shut up, Percy. *takes phone* Hello?

Luke: Annabeth?

Annabeth: Luke?

Luke: Hi, Annabeth.

Luke: Annabeth?

Luke: Annabeth?

Annabeth had hung up the phone already. "-no good slimehead, needs to rot in Hades for all I care, how he got this number I don't know, I should call the police on him, have him arrested for stalking, he's the legal age, but I'm not that sort of person, no, I'll just voodoo him until he kills himself-"

Let's just say that it was an interesting afternoon.

So here I was, somehow letting Annabeth drive the Prius for a short ride into New Jersey to the voodoo shop. I don't know why I was with her, or why I was letting her drive, because it was obvious she hadn't eaten and was probably going to get us into a wreck.

*SPOILER ALERT* She did.

Here's how. We were driving along some road, I don't know which one it was, because I had my eyes closed and was trying to sleep. Voodoo wasn't exactly my thing, you know?

Out of nowhere, I felt the car jerk underneath me. My eyes shot open. Annabeth had fainted at the wheel, eyes lolled in the back of her head like one of those creepy eye-moving dolls. All in slow motion, I reached toward the steering wheel. I was too slow. For whatever reason, I was moving in slow motion, but the car wasn't, and neither was the tree the car was going towards because Annabeth hadn't bothered to take the extremely considerate action of lifting her foot off the gas pedal before collapsing.

So we hit this tree.

Neither one of us survived that incident.

Now, wait a minute. You must be thinking: if neither one of you survived, how can both of you be telling this story to us? How can it be possible that your voice is still alive and you're not?  
Simple. There's this place called the Underworld. It's where you go when you die. And as long as you're pretty cooperative and have been good in your previous life, they'll let you do pretty much whatever you want.

A detail of our trial.

After crossing the River Lethe (that man called Charon? One of the most difficult people I'd ever met. Honestly, the American dollar was worth more than any drachma you'd find), we arrived at the Judgment Palace, or whatever it was called. I forget. Annabeth would probably know. I was surprised at how much stuff from Greek and Roman mythology presided in the Underworld. It made me wonder about its presence in Western culture, too. If it was there all the time. Annabeth didn't answer me when I asked.

Her dead self really didn't look any different from her alive self. Wide-eyed, visible gears turning in her head, gorgeous. And skinny. Really, really skinny.

The Judgment place thing was nice, if you didn't pay attention to the obvious deathly things. And the prison chambers. And the screams, and grunts, and crying. Okay, so not as nice a place as I made it off to be in the first, but whatever. It was okay for a dead person.

That was odd to say, and it still is. I'm dead. I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead. I'd said it so many times when I forgot my homework or failed a test or something, but now I was actually dead, and it was completely different.

It didn't bother me, really. It was actually sort of nice. Nothing to worry about except the trial.

The trial itself was actually pretty short. A man, Hades or someone, I don't know, decided that we both belong in the Elysian Fields. Annabeth for donating a total of around a hundred thousand dollars to the poor and animals and churches and stuff, me for helping and supporting Annabeth in her hardship times or whatever.

We could both try for rebirth.

Annabeth looked at me and shook her head. "Living was hell. No way am I signing up for that again. At least I'm dead for this one."  
I decided to stay with her. She was, after all, my best friend in Hell.

That's sort of funny. I have a best friend in Hell.

Ha. Haha.

I've learned that Hades can be both Hell and Heaven at the same time. The place we went, well, it's sort of like Heaven. Of course, it's not as great as the Isles of the Blest, which is where you would go if you chose rebirth and reached the Elysium all three times. But it was better than the Fields of Asphodel, where regular people went, people who had done nothing really remarkable with their lives. And it was a hundred times better than the Fields of Punishment, where it was really like Hell.

Nice, isn't it?

I like it here. I really do. I agree with Annabeth, it's better than living. Here, you don't have to worry about grades or sports or anything. Annabeth didn't have to worry about eating, because we don't require food anymore. In a way, we both sort of won. Annabeth will be forever hungry (because she was _really_ hungry when she died) and she wouldn't be getting any thinner (because she was stuck like that forever).

I'll let Annabeth give her account of Hades now. It's not as bad as it seems, honestly, and I promise you that we're happy.

Annabeth's turn.

**Don't kill me. I warned you.**

**Thanks.**

**::Binna::**


	30. (Don't Fear) The Reaper

**Chapter Thirty**

So Percy pretty much explained the entire car wreck-death thing. I think he did a pretty good job of recounting it. More extensive than I would have bothered. To me, it was like one second we were alive, the next we weren't.

Honestly, I couldn't have ever asked for a better end.

I was driving, and I was angry. So angry that I actually forgot to breathe. Pressure built inside my head, steam rising from my flaming heart and dizziness from the lack of air. So I kind of passed out. And then we kind of hit a tree. And then we were kind of dead. So point taken: for all of you out there, _driving requires freaking fuel._ And not just in the car either, so don't forget to eat.

Personally, I've thought about ending my life so many times that this was like a dream to me. The only difference was that, in my dreams, there was never anybody with me. I was always alone. And I'd never thought about a car as a method of suicide.

Then again, this wasn't suicide. It was unintentional suicide, sort of like drug misuse.

I actually like it down here, anyway. I can dance and stay up and pace and read and do everything I ever loved about living, only I'm not alive. I got to see Silena again, and I got to see my real mother for the first time. I even got invited to Silena's deathday party.

Nobody bothers to be mean here, because they're all dead. And nobody, not even me, bothers to be depressed, either.

But anyway.

I mean, it's not like this was what I'd expected. Greek afterlife? Really? …cool…

We, that being Percy and I, were getting along better than we ever had in true life, probably because neither one of us could die anymore, so there was nothing to worry about.

We even sat down together to watch our friends' reaction to our death at your funeral, because that's the type of thing you do when you're dead.

First to our coffins were some kids from school that, in all honesty, Percy and I hardly know. Next were his friends, then my dancing friends. Even some of them came in from California to attend the funeral.

If I had the physical ability to cry, that's what I would've done at that moment.

As Calypso passed, she stared at my (quite impeccable looking, if I may add) body wistfully. _I told you so,_ she mouthed.

But our parents were what really set me off.

My parents and brothers had also flown in from California. My youngest brother was tugging at my stepmother's arm, whispering, "Where's Annabeth? You said we'd see Annabeth."

As they passed my coffin, he looked and understood. "She's dead," he murmured, and burst into loud tears.

Mrs. Jackson and Paul looked sort of empty. They walked like zombie grocery bags filled too far with Jello: they might burst, or maybe not.

I clutched at Percy's arm the entire way through, and he put a hand on my shoulder.

"I miss them," I said, dry tears whispering their way down my face like dry ice.

"Me too," Percy replied. "Me too."

And we just sat there for a while, neither one of us saying a word, and looking at the blank vision screen in front of us.

The ghostly wind blew over the garden.

Almost everywhere we went, there were gardens. I guess Persephone just really liked decorating the underworld or something.

The food wasn't bad either.

Hah.

But the crazy garden obsession reminded me of my even crazier nightmares when I was alive, and I didn't like them too much. It gave me anxiety: was it, or was it not, going to jump out at me? Was it, or was it not, going to turn blood red? Was it, or was it not, going to take one of my favourite songs and manipulate it into demon food?

After a while, that's what I realized I had been, living. Demon food.

I was feeding the demons in my head, and in turn, they were killing me. But they weren't entirely in my head. I met people who had the exact same demons as me, and we became instant friends.

There was no drama in Hell.

Hah. Hahah. No drama in hell.

Hah. Bad joke.

And even though drama was provoked through differences, and there was none, all of us definitely had differences. Percy stayed as sane as ever, through the ages, and that bothered me. I'd never been sane, and even in Hell he could keep his mind.

Honestly, wouldn't that be upsetting to you? Just a little bit?

And don't tell me no, you're crazy, shut up, I want a yes.

Yes? Good.

Well, I guess I have to say for the both of us since Percy's out, thank you for listening to our tale like a faithful little bunny rabbit.

We hope you've learned something.

Oh, screw that. We hope you've been entertained.

As I learned that day watching the funeral, people love you. I'm sure they do, and if they don't then they're not worthy of your attention.

But that's not a possibility, because they do.

And if they don't remember that we love you.

Well, that's it, then. Our story is over, but yours is just beginning. Go forth and do something great.

See you in Hades.

~Percy and Annabeth~

**Alright, well, I still have the epilogue (one more chapter, so keep your eyes peeled), and that's the end of this story. I love you guys, you've been so supportive and lovely through the months. Stay amazing.**

**::Binna::**


	31. Epilogue: Sweet Nothings

**Epilogue**

**Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson:** are, of course, dead. They lived a happy death and never tried for rebirth.

**Sally Jackson:** Was crushed by Percy's death, and began her own depression cycle, fueled by the stages of grief. Once the stages were finished, however, Sally was perfectly fine. She went on to live to the age of 86, dying of natural causes.

**Paul Blofis: **Was as upset about the accident as Sally was, however, his stages of grief left a much less destructive path through his life: he was stunned for a while, but then began to live again, much like Sally. He lived until the age of 91, dying of a stroke.

**Calypso: **Had a bad bout with bulimia five years after the death of Percy and Annabeth, and died of a ruptured intestine. Before she died, she designed costumes for the Bolshoi Ballet and numerous famed academies around the world.

**Mr. and Mrs. Chase: **Always knew Annabeth would end up killing herself in some way or another. And they tried to help her, they had done everything they could. She didn't want any of it, though. The Chases were miserable after Annabeth's death, of course, but it hadn't come out of nowhere, exactly.

**The Boys:** missed Percy and Annabeth very much. They all lived into their nineties, except Leo, who got into a machinery accident in his thirties. Please, who didn't see that one coming?

**The Ballet Girls: **never really liked Annabeth in the first place, except for Zoё and Phoebe. Annabeth's friends in California, on the other hand, missed Annabeth with intensity. The only ones who made it into the professional ballet world were Piper and Zoё. Piper became a Prima Ballerina, and Zoё was a soloist in the New York Company and taught ballet for the rest of her life.

**Luke: **had been calling Annabeth to apologize and tell her he loved her. When he heard the news, he was so miserable he actually committed suicide himself.

_**THE END**_

**AN: please submit your ideas! Unfortunately, I have not received any ideas that I like thus far. I am extending my contest to ideas that are not conforming to my deadly mind.**

**Thank you so much for reading this story, it means so much to me! I love you all, stay beautiful! **** Keep an eye out for more fics from me and new ideas and polls, thank you so much! :P **

**If anyone has a Tumblr account, please PM me your Tumblr and I will check your blog out! I need more on my dash. Thx loves!**

**::Binna::**


	32. Death to Contest

**Hello there, my fellow reader-friends!**

**I have just published a new fanfic.**

**It is located on my profile and is called "How to Save a Life".**

**I would greatly appreciate any reviews, comments, favourites, anything of the sort. **

**Needless to say, the contest is over.**

**Happy FicReading,**

**::Binna::**


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